I have an idea of making the blades lightning-sheathed thanks to a Warpstone power core to electrocute and slice apart enemy formations.
A Warpstone power core set to explode when the thing finally stops of course. For extra hilarity. Seriously, I demand that we put Ikit Claw on this with an Authority next turn to get maximum hilarity out of these things.
This is why I think SV makes for good skaven. Just make sure to specify what features you want the souped-up version to want if you do put an authority on it and the blender factor will be more maximum than Broly.
I have an idea of making the blades lightning-sheathed thanks to a Warpstone power core to electrocute and slice apart enemy formations.
A Warpstone power core set to explode when the thing finally stops of course. For extra hilarity. Seriously, I demand that we put Ikit Claw on this with an Authority next turn to get maximum hilarity out of these things.
I have an idea of making the blades lightning-sheathed thanks to a Warpstone power core to electrocute and slice apart enemy formations.
A Warpstone power core set to explode when the thing finally stops of course. For extra hilarity. Seriously, I demand that we put Ikit Claw on this with an Authority next turn to get maximum hilarity out of these things.
I was leaning towards Lore of Azgorh fuckery, since it's fire/earth+construction. Some kind of central power core to help push the thing along and let it spew death and explode at the end.
I was leaning towards Lore of Azgorh fuckery, since it's fire/earth+construction. Some kind of central power core to help push the thing along and let it spew death and explode at the end.
1 Authority on spreading the Lore with flavor towards making sure the Blender Carts researchers are involved. 1 Authority on the Blender Carts themselves.
Okay, I'm done the update now. It clocks in at just over 22k words, and I'll be posting it shortly after I spellcheck and such. Maybe make myself some lunch too. Just do yourself one favor: read the update, then check the threadmarks. It'll give you a better emotional impact than spoiling yourselves beforehand.
Okay, I'm done the update now. It clocks in at just over 22k words, and I'll be posting it shortly after I spellcheck and such. Maybe make myself some lunch too.
Ikit Claw successfully reverse engineers the dawi-zharr Whirlwind, producing the Blender Cart. He attempts to create an automated version of it, but sets it aside due to time constraints. He then reverse engineers the dawi-zharr Bazuka with some help from his hapless apprentices, creating the Ratkit Launcher.
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Fleshmaster Stitch spends a long time observing the Great Taurii in their pens underneath the Black Fortress before observing one hands-on, going comatose for a while in the process of eating it's heart. His work is saved by a clanrat named Volgrik, who he then takes as an underling. He manages to understand many of the features of the Taurus, and reproduces them in the Skittaur breed. He does, however, fail to grasp some flame-like Essence that seems to run through their flesh. Annoyed, he observes the Lammasu kept in the pens, and is delighted when it learns how to speak. However, it will not speak to him, demanding a 'worthy' skaven.
-----
Thanquol, after violently coercing Drazhoath Ash-fur, successfully learns the Lore of Azgorh, and the two of them write a grimoire on the subject that is quickly transferred to the Grey Seers.
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The Dark Lands are quickly colonized by the Warpfang Bank after word of its wealth reaches their ears. Headed by Skrisnik Goldfang himself, they construct a new city named Glassvault by the streak of glass that was once Zharr-Naggrund, and aid Sleek Sharpwit of the USA and Morbag One-Eye clan Horripila in constructing Boot Camps across the Dark Lands and implementing the Hygiene regimen respectively. When the other Great Clans not otherwise occupied hear of the opportunity present, they move in. The Warpfang extracts concessions from each of them in exchange for letting them settle in the area - Morskittar and Skyre take the Tower of Gorgoth, Gnawdell and Mors claim Uzkulak and the surrounding plateau, Verminkin claims the Black Fortress for Moulder, Nurglitch takes over the Daemon's Stump, and Lord Thugclaw establishes a new outpost in Mount Grimfang. Clan Rictus attempts to colonize the Plain of Bones, but none of their expeditions return, so they write it off until later. Sleek and Morbag end up constructing a USA/Horripila outpost city surrounding the Gates of Zharr, and Sleek's age begins to take a significant toll on him. Finally, it is discovered that in 3 turns the glass that was once Zharr-Naggrund will condense into the largest warpstone deposit in the world. This discovery combined with their machinations allows the Warpfang to claim the number 1 Council seat, second only to the Underlord himself.
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Warlord-General Paskrit leads a campaign against the dragon ogres in the Vaults along with Seerlord Kritislik. This goes well initially, claiming many dragon ogre lives in exchange for chaff and even managing to capture two live specimens. However, the dragon ogres begin to grow organized as larger ones awaken, and eventually a host of several hundred awakens, led by several shaggoths. Paskrit takes them to battle, and attempts to bog them down in a bait army in order to bury them under artificial landslides. This almost fails, and only succeeds due to the summoning of multiple Verminlords, who bizarrely carried lightning cannons with them, only strengthening the dragon ogres they fired upon. After ensuring the dragon ogres buried under the rockslide were actually dead, the campaign concludes.
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Skretch Half-Dead transports the leader of Rictus, Kratch Doomclaw, into Nekehara so the necromancer may investigate the Black Pyramid of Nagash. After just over a week Doomclaw returns, his necromantic powers significantly strengthened by his studies within. He reiterates his offer to Skretch to join Rictus in order to learn necromancy and streamline whatever magic runs his skeletal crew, which is at present inefficient and has minor side effects. Skretch refuses, both unnerved by Doomclaw and afraid to approach the head of the Navy with such a proposal.
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Tretch Craventail attempts to set up infiltration teams in Nekehara, and succeeds to an extent before they are unintentionally discovered and wiped out by the Tomb Kings. A few of his informants somehow survive, as does Tretch, who is forced to trek the entire way back to the Dark Lands on foot.
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Nightlord Sneek fixes his clan's sudden dearth of assassins and strikes a profitable deal with the shoguns of Nippon, attaining the tutelage of several soul forgers, woods witches, and a large variety of Nipponese fauna to study. In exchange, he and his clan assist Nippon in invading Cathay, enabling the Nipponese army to land undetected on the coast.
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The Plague Pope of Pestilens, Skrolk, and the plague priest Helkic Stain brew a cursed plague called the Wheezing Slumber to afflict upon Cathay. During the process Helkic is enlightened on the spiritual nature of Pestilens' diseases by Skrolk, and learns much from him.
The Wheezing Slumber is unleashed upon central-southern Cathay, crippling the productivity of the plentiful farms in that region. Because the plague does not kill but debilitates its patients for a very long time, it is difficult to cure. Many conventional healers sent by the Dragon Emperor fail to do anything, and many are infected themselves. A passing order of monks helps out, and manages to cure many of the afflicted, but only temporarily, as they had to leave for the Great Bastion to heal the wounded there. Lastly, mysterious specialists sent by Shen Huanglong himself show up, and begin the process of discerning how to cure it.
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Slikk Oilfur uses Throt the Unclean's ties to a tribe of ogres headed by the tyrant Shrewd Fulg to gain audience with Overtyrant Greasus Goldtooth, who has called all ogres who will listen to gather in his lands, which are for the moment unassailed by the dragon ogres rampaging through the Mountains of Mourne. Over the course of several discussions Slikk manages to convince the Overtyrant to migrate his pupating kingdom of ogres to Cathay rather than the Dark Lands, using the insights granted by Skreech Verminking to do so. Throt ends up killing a tyrant who was making trouble for Greasus and claiming several members of his tribe as a retinue/portable snack bar. As recognition for his deeds, Slikk is promoted to Head Spokesrat of the Warpfang Bank.
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Deathmaster Snikch is sent into Estalia on a hunch from the Underlord to locate the mysterious woman sighted earlier. After a great deal of murders he finds her, and tracks her to a temple in the mountain village of Reas. The woman, who turns out to be the goddess Myrmidia, lectures the assembled Estalian nobility, who are gathered for tradition, about the purpose of two treasures present in the temple. She solves both puzzles, revealing twin artifacts to have been hidden within them - a key, and a sphere with a keyhole. Myrmidia combines the two just as Snikch attempts to kill her, revealing the setup to have been a gambit lasting from her last mortal incarnation - the sphere sends out a pulse of light magic that nullifies Snikch's shadow magic just as he is using it, and temporarily blinds him. Even debilitated to that extent, he still massacres his way through the Estalian nobility, killing over three quarters of them. Upon being confronted by Myrmidia again, he decides to flee and re-attempt the assassination when he has recovered from the magical backlash he is suffering. He nearly gets away, but is foiled by another centuries-long gambit by the goddess, who long ago mandated that catnip be planted in excess around the temples where her treasures were kept. The massive amount of cats he runs into delays him long enough for Myrmidia to capture him.
The story of the world spanned millennia and encompassed the lives of countless creatures great and small. Everyone from the greatest gods to the smallest insects played a vital part in the grand design. But just as every story has a conclusion, so the world has an end. Fate had decreed it the End Times, and the gods and monsters hiding in the corners of the world reached out to claim it as they nearly had in the beginning. The winds of magic began to blow in from the poles as a catastrophic tempest of sorcery, and all mortals braced for annihilation, whether they knew it or not. Save for one group.
The Skaven Under-Empire had acted in its full capacity and overthrown fell Zharr-Naggrund in a matter of months just a short while ago. Even as all the forces of Chaos congregated into great hordes lead by the blessed to smash the lands of the gods that opposed the Four, some of the finest minds in all of skavendom focused their attentions on turning the dark technology the dawi-zharr had left behind to their equally dark designs.
The Black Fortress
The Dark Lands
Built in the caldera of an extinct volcano, the Black Fortress stretched hundreds of feet up into the sky, an impassable obsidian monolith blocking the approach into the Dark Lands from the southeast. Bristling with war engines and murder holes on its outer walls, the spiked countenance of the fortress alone was enough to turn some armies back, for it was sturdy enough that a conventional assault could take years merely to make it up to the gates. It was therefore the perfect place for the skaven could conduct their technosorcerous experiments in with no fear of collapsing the place.
Three skaven met in the needlessly gargantuan entrance hall of the Fortress. The first was Ikit Claw, most prolific Warlock-Engineer of Clan Skyre, one of the greatest mechanically-inclined minds on the face of the planet. Over half his body was augmented or replaced with metallic parts as a result of a disastrous accident long ago, which left him with a crippled body that he promptly rebuilt better. His face was metallic, shaped harsh and angular in a deliberately crude warface, and the rest of his body bulged with hidden pistons and augmentations. He glowed a faint green from within, his warpstone generators pulsing regularly in time with his heartbeat. The second was Fleshmaster Stitch, lead Mutator of Clan Moulder, perhaps the greatest mind in regard to biological matters in the world at present. Today he stood nine feet tall and had the maw and tail of a Khuresh crocodile, batlike ears, the multifaceted eyes of a particular species of beetle, and the body of his own breed of rat-ogre augmented with oversized claws of bone that glowed from within with bioluminescence. Both of them hated the other with a passion born of mutual brilliance in opposing fields of study, and normally both of them in the same room resulted in either the room being destroyed or an unstoppable, inane argument between the two that would go on for days.
Both Ikit and the Fleshmaster stood perfectly still. They were directly next to one another but neither had so much as one of their whiskers twitch. There was no room for petty disagreements in this situation, and both of them were intensely aware that if either of them acted up it could be their last day with all their component particles connected to each other. They both breathed very carefully and kept their musk glands tightly under control as they focused all their attention on the fearsome being in front of them.
Thanquol snorted and snuffled into a kerchief in an attempt to get a particularly pernicious glob of mucous out of his nose. Eventually succeeding after many attempts, he coughed deep in his chest to clear his throat and rubbed his spittle into his horns to shine them before finally looking up and addressing the two skaven who both towered over him.
"I won't talk-chat for long," he began. "The two of you are here-here to research-loot the things we got from the dark dwarfthings. Do that. You've the run of this place-place, and however many warptokens I gave-loaned you to appropriate the dwarfthings' things for our use. Don't repeat last time with the ... the ... what-what did you call them?"
There was a moment of silence as the two scientists glanced askance at each other before Ikit hesistantly spoke. "Drillfiends, Magnamious Underlord."
Thanquol waved his hand flippantly. "Those, yes-yes. You are both in this facility while other agent-servants of mine do work-work in the rest of the Dark Lands. Don't fight-squabble like last time, because my glorious personage is staying here-here as well. If you delay-muddle the work of the other, I will find out and be bothered." A thrum of power resonated from within Thanquol, invisible to the eye but palpable in both of the scientist's souls, which shrivelled a little at the contact. "Don't bother me."
With that, Thanquol turned around and walked deeper into the fortress, leaving Ikit and Stitch standing there for the next several minutes before they dared move again.
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Accomodations in the fortress for living space ended up being somewhat awkward. Neither Ikit nor Stitch wished to be in the slightest close to each other during their research, yet they had been forbidden from leaving the building save for with the Underlord's supervision. This was never asked for, as both of them remembered very well his words to them about inconveniencing him. As a result, an unspoken agreement was struck, and they moved about frequently between different parts of the fortress, doing their best to stay out of each other's way and simultaneously produce impressive enough results to show the other up when they inevitably came across the other's research areas.
Ikit primarily stayed in the numerous armories of the fortress, mostly located near or above ground level. Here he examined the looted weapons of the dawi-zharr in as great a detail as the fortress conditions would allow. One of the first things he did with his allocated funds was to use a portion of them to build several laboratories inside the fortress, which was done with quite a bit of difficulty due to having to transport his preferred (and bulky and fragile) examination equipment through the narrow confines of the fortress. "Damn-damn the expenses, I have work to do," he often exclaimed during the process.
After the initial fuss, however, Ikit made good progress. The first of the devices he examined was a design referred to by the dawi-zharr as the Whirlwind. It was simple but ingenious, being essentially a push cart with rotating scythes mounted to the front and attached to the wheels by a collection of gears. When the contraption was pushed forward, the gears turned and whirled the blades around at a good speed. It would be capable of blending through packed formations of troops if brought to a good speed, and the simplicity of its design made it perfect for inclusion into a skaven army. It was simplicity for Ikit to figure out how to replicate the thing, though he couldn't quite grasp just how the dwarfs had made it so sturdy - the copies he made, forged quickly of cheap iron, didn't hold up to more than a few good hits, and they rattled disturbingly when pushed. But they were easy to make, and that was what Ikit valued most. He cackled to himself as he meticulously recorded his designs in a code of his own making and sent it off to his laboratories in Skavenblight. Skyre stood to make many warptokens off of the newly-named Blender Cart.
Merely creating a copy of some other engineer's work, however, was not enough for Ikit's sensibilities. Any hack could recreate the work of others, but only the truly gifted could improve upon it. So he set upon himself the goal of making a motorized version of the device. Initially he had quite the headache attempting to figure out how to simplify his warpstone engines enough to be produced in the numbers needed, but after significant contemplation while watching a detachment of the Infurnal Legion keep a Bale Taurus in check, he realized he was going about it the wrong way. If it were to be a fire-and-forget weapon, it was best not to complicate it and instead let the purity of the design show. Just as the Legion skaven worked nearly in sync, it would be a collection of gears like already found on the Blender Cart that powered his autonomous version on its own. He indulged it as a side project alone, however - he had the rest of the dawi-zharr wargear to examine and what he had found already would be of great use to the lesser clans that he had so many of in his pocket. He likely wouldn't finalize it by the end of the year, but for the moment his mastery of the design was sufficient for him to leave self-spinning prototypes all over the fortress for Stitch to run into.
Give his assistants pig snouts, would he?
During the time he had in the armories of the fortress he perused the rest of the wargear and schematics he had access to. Most of them he discarded as unfeasible to recreate before the Underlord came calling - he fawned over the Iron Daemon war engines they had stored in the base levels but he could tell by looking at them that they'd need a more in-depth study than he'd been allocated - and some he just was unable to study safely, the fearsome and tantalizing Hellcannons being foremost amongst these. Instead, though it pained his greedy spirit, he confined himself to something more ... realistic.
Skyre had extensive experience with ballistic weapons, but the closest equivalent Ikit could compare to the chaos dwarf Bazuka was the poison-wind artillery piece, and even then it wasn't a fair match - the Bazuka was long-ranged, explosive, and most of all portable. Wielded by skilled hands it'd be of great use against a skaven horde - perfect if Mors got too uppity - and if some enemy leader decided to challenge him to a duel, he'd like to see them survive a rocket to the back.
Better yet, the design was ... well, to his enlightened mind it was easy to comprehend, the various measures that had obviously been taken to prevent premature containment failures of the explosive rounds, the specific ways the warhead itself was designed for efficient aerodynamics, the specific design of the barrel... but, as he reminded himself, not all skaven were as brilliant. He could - and had - created a copy for his own personal use, but to make himself the supply for the entire clan would take up the majority of his time. The design would therefore need to be ... simplified somewhat. And he knew just the way to do it.
-----
His fourteen current senior apprentices, all of them mildly less idiotic than the rest of the bunch, woke up in a closed room underneath the fortress one day with several meagre workshops spaced evenly around the edge of the room and a Bazuka on a pedestal in the exact centre. "Listen up, my fool-fool minions," his voice exclaimed from a recording device embedded in the ceiling. "I have realized in the course-course of my experiments that my clear-clear brilliance is not the perspective of the common masses - I need-need idiocy to communicate my talent to idiots. So I have enlisted you."
There was a collective chorus of groans from the apprentices.
"You will each find-find a vial implanted in your ear. This is full of an explosive acid, yes-yes, that if released into the air will detonate and melt-melt your small, feeble brains. You shall have thirteen mere sun-cycles to manufacture a copy of the weapon you see-see on the pedestal there. If you do not succeed, the vials will crack-smash, and your demise will be both painful and stupid-idiotic. Your stations have the things I use-used to make the weapon. Begin ... now!"
Instead of heading to their stations, all the apprentices began a mad scramble for the pedestal and the bazuka upon it. Eventually one broke free of the tangled fistfight that erupted once they met each other, clambering onto the pedestal and cackling as he snatched up the bazuka and aimed it at the rest of his competitors. His laughter tapered off, however, at the empty click that the weapon emitted when he pulled the trigger.
"I almost forgot to say-say," boomed the speaker at that exact minute, Ikit apparently having had extremely good timing when recording it, "That trying to kill-kill your fellow apprentices with anything other than a rocket-weapon your own paws make-make, or touching mine which I have so generously lent to help-help your own education, will result in immediate disqualification."
The apprentice on the pedestal whimpered for a moment before the top of his cranium explosively melted, raining acidic brain matter down upon the rest of the apprentices, who scattered as his wailing form tumbled from the pedestal and began shakily crawling about for a few minutes before finally going still. They went to their workstations quietly.
-----
After some motivation, Ikit found his underlings up to the task of creating a suitably unsophisticated replica that would be able to be made by inferior skaven across the Under-Empire. It didn't quite have the range of the dawi-zharr's version, nor was it as accurate, and it exploded in the wielder's hands when fired a small portion of the time, which was perfectly acceptable.
After finalizing his designs and sending them off to Skavenblight, Ikit spent what little time he had before the Arch-Rat emerged from his seclusion examining and drooling over the rest of the war machines of the dawi zharr, and estimating what he would need to unlock the rest of their secrets and field them in his armies.
Blender Carts unlocked! See Skyre technology tab.
Automated Blender Carts partially researched! Will be unlocked if Ikit continues to research Chaos Dwarf War Machines or is assigned to finishing them - the design will likely turn out better if Ikit can devote his attention to it, though they'll assuredly be deadly either way. See Exploitable Research Assets tab.
Ratkit Launchers unlocked! See Skyre technology tab.
Chaos Dwarf Wargear requires 2 additional dice and the Daemonbinding tech to research fully, and an additional die on top of that to unlock the quality bonuses. The Chaos Dwarf Wargear tech also grants the quality bonus if already researched.
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While Ikit Claw took apart and examined the machinery of the chaos dwarfs, Fleshmaster Stitch busied himself with something more in line with his talents. He made his way to the stone pens underneath the fortress where the Taurii were kept.
The sight initially froze him in joy, for while he had heard much of the wondrous creatures, he had not been present during the battle at Zharr-Naggrund where they had been deployed.
They were glorious.
To be sure, their numbers were unforgivably low - there were only 10 Taurii present in the fortress, of which only 2 were the larger, more formidable variety called the Bale Taurus by the Infurnal Legion. One of these was apparently off-limits to him, belonging to the master of the Legion. Dazhat or something. There was also a solitary creature kept in the very back of the black stone cavern. The Legion skaven that had accompanied him down there called it Lammasu and refused to go near it, though it was immobilized with many chains. Looking at it, Stitch saw a great intelligence in its eyes, and shivered as he thought of what he could do with its kind.
-----
Stitch went down into the black cavern every day for a month or more, spending hours seated in place obversing the creatures moving. Each day he wore more and more features that made him resemble them - his eyes glowed red, his maw twisted into a bull's snout, his fur grew thick and coarse and dense. At first members of the Infurnal Legion accompanied him each day, for the Taurus was a valuable and dangerous creature to them, but as the days went on they left him alone more and more, until finally they stopped accompanying him entirely and focused on working to adapt to their new skaven forms.
Then one day hellish shrieks echoed out of the black cavern, and the ground rumbled. A detachment of troops rushed down to the cave to find a horrific sight: the restraints on one of the pens had melted into scrap, and the Great Taurus that had been kept within had surged out like a volcanic eruption. Even as they watched, it savaged the prone body of Fleshmaster Stitch, who wriggled and shrieked as the burning claws and tusks of the beast dug into his flesh.
Of course they didn't rush in to attempt to save the Fleshmaster; they weren't about to risk their snouts against a bloody Taurus of all things. They unanimously decided to leave one of their number to watch, which they accomplished by nailing the unlucky skaven's footpaw to the floor, and to go and take their time in retrieving reinforcements. Thus it was that only the unlucky clanrat was present to watch the Fleshmaster chew his way into the chest of the Taurus and devour its heart, and the only one to hear his command of 'keep the body' before he passed into unconsciousness.
When the Legion finally arrived, notified by the other clanrats, they were distraught over the death of the Taurus, but were apathetic about the apparent demise of Stitch. It was only the lone clanrat, who's name was Valgrik, who kept them from discreetly disposing of both of the corpses in a magma pit. After all, he reasoned, if Skavenblight found out the Fleshmaster had mysteriously dissappeared there would be questionings, and the truth would be found out eventually, to everybody's detriment. Far better for the bodies to be kept and simply put in a compromising situation - in the destroyed pen, say, where it would look as if the Fleshmaster had foolishly entered it without supervision and released the Taurus unwittingly. The Legion members saw Valgrik's point, and arranged the bodies in the burnt-out stone pen to suggest that sort of demise. Then they left Volgrik to clean up, unwilling to involve themselves any further. His patience was rewarded when several hours later, the Fleshmaster stood up, his wounds somehow completely gone, though his flesh was still scorched and blistered. "Good-good," he exclaimed upon seeing the Taurus corpse at his feet. "Finally, an underling that obeys my commands! I nearly thought you wouldn't," he chittered, hoisting the corpse of the Taurus, which resembled a burnt-out coal as opposed to the roaring furnace it was before, onto his shoulder.
Volgrik's mind raced. He'd merely been looking out for his own self-interest in the long term when he'd done what he did, but if the Fleshmaster thought differently... "Of course-course, Lord Stitch," he chittered obesqueously. "I could not allow the most grand-great mutator in all the clan be inconvenienced." Best he not know how the Legion had planned to dispose of him as well...
Stitch chuckled darkly as he dragged the Taurus corpse out of the pen. "I am grateful that a minion may show-show such loyalty. My other underlings could learn-learn from you." He paused for a moment in contemplation. "In fact, they will! Come-come with me, apprentice." He continued walking, not looking back.
Volgrik blinked in shock a few times at the Fleshmaster's back before shrugging in acceptance. He could think of worse fates, he contemplated as he began to limp after his new master.
-----
Stitch's experience with the Great Taurus, which he had deliberately instigated to get a better idea of the thing's capabilities and behaviours, allowed him to make a good amount of progress on his quest to replicate the beasts. Having a corpse to autopsy helped as well. Within a comparatively short amount of time, he was able to deduce the makeup of a number of the things that made them so deadly, and thus replicate them - the metallic skin, the way its musculature was structured to allow such a large creature to move so smoothly, various cosmetic features which he tested out on some of Ikit's assistants. He even was able to absorb enough instinctive knowledge of their behaviour that he understood how to breed them, though it would be a slow process with only nine specimens. There was, however, one niggling inconsistency that prevented him from fully replicating them in his own breeding pits. There was some aspect of them, a ferocious fire that blazed in their very flesh, that powered them and gave them some of their signature abilities. He couldn't pinpoint its origin, a fact which frustrated him. Perhaps if he had some hint as to how they had been given this flame in their flesh, he could know how to spread it to other creations.
This was a thing that continued to trouble him even as he experienced great success with another area of his research. Taking several unwitting subjects and a few rat ogres, he mutated them with the traits he had aquired from the taurus, turning them into centauroid monstrosities with metallic flesh, horns all over, and a near-unnecessary amount of bloodlust. To any other mutator, a perfect creation. But Stitch was still dissatisfied, for he had heard reports of what the Bull Centaurs had been able to do during the invasion, and the things his Gilded Skattaurs and their lesser bretheren could accomplish was consistently below what he had been informed of.
Frustrated, he took to spending large amounts of time examining the one specimen he had not worked on as of yet, the Lammasu. He had been told it was dangerous, but none of the Infurnal Legion knew why exactly save their master, and he was sequestered in the peak of the fortress. So he examined it, and took to having one-sided conversations with it, telling it of his frustrations in examining its kin. Often he thought it looked at him with a sort of contemplation, and suspected something more was going on behind its eyes than the ruminations of a dull beast.
This suspicion was borne out when one day he brought some papers down with him to its pen. Noticing its attention frequently being drawn to the lettering on them, Stitch lay them out in front of it where it could see them. After near an hour of examining them, the Lammasu began to use its claws to scratch similar marks in the floor. Seeing its intent, Stitch waited until it had inscribed the entire Queekish alphabet, albiet in mismatched order. It pointed to the first letter it had scratched and made a sound. Stitch furrowed his brow before the realization hit him. It is trying to learn our speech! What marvels I can make of this specimen if it can communicate the effectiveness of its alterations, he mused. Then he cleared his throat and corrected the Lammasu, enunciating the correct sound for that letter.
Despite his hopes for the possibility of the creature aiding his research, it refused after it had learned their language, which it spoke in a thick, grating voice. "I shall speak only with one who is worthy of mine self," it said repeatedly. "Bring one such to me, if your kind is not wholly feeble like thyself." It refused to say anything else to him. Angry, but unwilling to harm such a delicious specimen, Stitch was forced to adjourn his studies of the Lammasu for the time being.
Great/Bale Taurus breeding stock established! They number 9 and breed slowly, so without outside intervention they will not produce more for at least 5 turns.
Gilded Skittaur and Lesser Skittaur mutated! See Moulder technology tab.
Taurus Mutation Tree requires 1 additional Authority along with the Scripture of Hashut to fully replicate the capabilities displayed by the original specimens.
The Black Fortress Lammasu unlocked! See Exploitable Research Assets tab.
Potential Hero Unit generated: Volgrik Cripplepaw. See Potential Hero Units tab.
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Strictly speaking, the very top chambers of the Black Fortress were not forbidden to anyone; they could venture up there any time they chose. In practice, they were kept more quarantined than the manthings quarantined plagued villages. They were Underlord Thanquol's residences for the time being and no one wanted to be the first skaven to test his goodwill. So it was that no one saw the several times he nearly destroyed the fortress.
Thanquol had taken an interest in the magic of flame and earth that Drazhoath Ash-Fur displayed, and so took him to the peak of the fortress and demanded that he teach him how to channel those energies. After some minor hesitation on Drazhoath's part...
-----
The Black Fortress rumbled with the force of the arcane energies being thrown about in it. Drazhoath was thrown out of a doorway, landing smoking on the black stone floor. The room he'd been forcibly evicted from was lit up with a hellish green radiance as Thanquol stomped out of it to glare at the sorceror. "You doubt my power, fool-fool minion?!" He shrieked, and threw an emerald bolt of death at Drazhoath, who conjured up a thick cloud of black smoke that swallowed it up.
"With all due respect, revered Underlord," he managed, dodging a burst of corroding light from Thanquol's eyes, "My magic requires significant personal hardiness. I don't wish to insult you, but..." He trailed off and his eyes bugged out as the Underlord ingested a worrying amount of warpstone powder with a snrrk.
"So it's insults now-now, is it? I'll show you hardiness! Eat my lightning, weakling!" Thanquol reared back, his fur standing on end with static charge, and spewed a torrent of green lightning out of his fingers. Drazhoath attempted to counter it with a powerful geyser of magma, but the strength of the Underlord's sorcery quickly overwhelmed his and he was swept up in the grasp of the electricity, sent crashing against the ceiling and walls as Thanquol flailed him around while laughing madly.
Finally it became too much for Drazhoath. "Stop! Stop! I will teach you! Please!" The lightning cut out after a few seconds, sending the black-furred skaven crashing to the ground at Thanquol's feet. "Good-good, I knew you'd come around eventually," exclaimed the suddenly happy Arch-Rat. "Let's go-go then, no time to waste." He turned around and walked back into the now-irradiated study, leaving Drazhoath to slowly drag himself to his feet and follow behind.
-----
He aquiesced, and the Wise One proved an eager and able student of the art. While normally the necessary intake of the energies of the flame in the earth into one's flesh required the caster to be exceptionally tough to get any notable results out of it, the Master of Magic proved able to overcome this limitation via sheer arcane power. This did cause a few problems - there was more than one occasion during his experiments with tapping into the earth that he unintentionally destablilized the fault lines of the Black Fortress itself, something narrowly averted by the nerve-wracked Drazhoath. Despite these minor mishaps, the Lord of the Dark Lands learned quickly and soon became an exemplar wielder of the dangerous magic.
Having learned quite a bit about teaching it to skaven from his experiences, Drazhoath spent the next few months creating a grimoire with Thanquol that detailed the necessary practices to master the Lore. This was sent off to Skavenblight posthaste, and with his tutelage done Thanquol emerged from his seclusion to inspect the work of the two scientists he'd left running about the fortress. Drazhoath was quietly relieved at the Underlord's departure - he'd dealt with unpersonable entities before, but never one quite so violently unpredictable as the Unmaker of Zharr-Naggrund, now self-styled Grandmaster of Azgorh.
Lore of Azgorh successfully researched! See Grey Seers and Exploitable Research Assets tabs.
Thanquol has learned the Lore of Azgorh! See character sheet.
New title gained! (Grandmaster of Azgorh)
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While the brightest of the skaven tinkered with the secrets of the dwarfs they had conquered, change was coming to the rest of the Dark Lands. Now that the dawi-zharr were absent and some time had been had for the scent of opportunity to drift to the Greater Clans, greedy eyes turned to the Dark Lands to exploit the wealth they saw there.
Bolstered by the resources of the Underlord himself, the Warpfang Bank sent expeditions to the now-empty fortresses and mines the dawi zharr had built and manned. When they returned and displayed their findings to the board that ran the titanic financial entity, Skrisnik Goldfang took one and a half heartbeats before he issued orders deploying the vast majority of his personal wealth to the proposed construction missions in the Dark Lands. The other board members, smelling the same thread of opportunity that their Senior Executive Rat had, followed suit. They all knew it was only a matter of time before the other great clans realized what the Under-Empire had within its grasp and devoted their own forces to claim as much of it as they could.
The Dark Lands was bursting at the seams with mineral wealth. Precious metals, gemstones, valuable materials like granite, obsidian, iron ore, metamorphic rock, tar, hot black oil, all of it could be found in abundance in the ground. Millennia of mining by the chaos dwarfs had not reduced it in any appreciable sense, and the expeditions had even found warpstone in moderate amounts, built up over the millennia from castoff magical energy falling down from the mountains no doubt. They had to have it.
Minor clans by the hundreds, nominally independent but in actuality owned heart and soul by the Bank, surged into the ashen wastes. Collections Officers accompanied them, gathering anything in the least valuable from the various mines and strongholds they visited. The clans brought equipment with them, slaves and mining gear where there was none, and after a period of several months and the geography of the vast plain had been more or less mapped out, the next phase began.
The Underlord had ordered that clan Horripila and the Army be given the opportunity to implement some of their ideas during the colonization of the Dark Lands. The construction of a city was, in Goldfang's opinion, the perfect place to test those theories. At his command, an immense train of stone, metal, and warpstone made its way both above and below the surface to what had been formerly known as the Plain of Zharr, now better known as the Glass Plateau. During the initial surveys, the site where the great city Zharr-Naggrund had been inspected to see if anything useful could be gleaned from the place where it had once stood. Instead the inspection teams found nothing but a miles-wide crater of glossy metamorphic rock that stank of magical residue. Skrisnik didn't know what exactly could've caused such a catastrophic detonation to create something like that, but some instinct told him it was a good idea to build there rather than a more central location like the Tower of Zharr like he had originally planned. He didn't know why, but the thought of that crater of slag stuck in his mind, niggling at him the entire way there. He had learned to trust these instincts long ago, however, and knew the reason would surface eventually.
At the building site, located just beside the crater to retain the ease of access to the various mines and factories located on the Glass Plateau, Goldfang met with his fellow member of the Council of Thirteen, Morbag One-Eye, as well as the second-in-command of the USA, Sleek Sharpwit. Being work-oriented skaven, they coordinated and met up with a minimum of posturing and threats, and began jointly planning what they all considered to be the next great hub of skavenkind.
Initially Goldfang presented a set of rough schematics his underlings had devised, which didn't deviate much from most skaven settlements: designed primarily to pack as many skaven into the proposed city as possible. This was immediately stonewalled by both Sleek and Morbag, who both had objections. While a typical skaven warren was a profitable arrangement for the Bank, as more skaven meant more debt slaves, space was needed for other things, they argued.
Sleek reminded Goldfang of the need to construct Boot Camps en masse in the settlements in the Dark Lands and the necessary space they would need for those. Skrisnik calculated the necessary resources to construct one of the facilities and discussed alternate arrangements with the ancient warlord, and it was ultimately agreed that while the Boot Camps would not be constructed within the city itself due to space considerations and to prevent inteference with the duties of the Collections Officers, there would be a collection of them on the plateau itself, and scattered at various outposts throughout the Dark Lands to help collect troops from all the settlements that would invariably pop up, as well as aiding training programs with the naturally harsh environment.
Morbag One-Eye had more problematic assertions. He had been given permission to implement his hygiene program to see if it would yield any benefits, and Skrisnik knew that although the Underlord took absolutely no interest in the details of how his plans were carried out, he did not appreciate being disobeyed. He could rebuff the Surgeon-General, but there would be consequences in the future. So although it pained him to see such expenditures of material for unknown benefits, he cooperated with Morbag's suggestions, to a reasonable extent. He made room for waste disposal areas, and added notes to include running water sources and areas for drainage. After much convincing and promises of favours owed, he was even convinced to expand the planned city slightly to reduce crowding, which according to One-Eye helped with slowing the spread of various afflictions. Horripila even recieved an enclave in the plan where they could examine sick skaven. Seeing an opportunity, Skrisnik proposed a system where the enclave would offer treatment of various ailments for a price, after which the unwitting client would become mired in a payment scheme, making both clans money.
After Goldfang's consultation with the two concluded, construction, which had already begun, was taken into high gear. Buildings were quickly thrown up in rough patterns, adhering to the guidelines set out by the Surgeon-General, who involved himself heavily in the process. Fuelled by the vast resources of the Warpfang Bank, the city was constructed at breathtaking speed, even with the extra time that ensuring that waste dumps were constructed with adequate space around them, the streets had what Morbag called drainage ditches installed, and various other little features. The Surgeon-General seemed to learn as he went, often going back and changing an already-constructed section when he realized some new source of 'contamination' that he had overlooked before. Even underground, the warren that was developed looked far different than most settlements. The tunnels were organized, bored out with loaned Skyre equipment according to diagrams and schematics, all set up to fit as many skaven inside the place as possible while giving them adequate space to move around. There were even designated caverns for the Broodmothers, where they'd be subjected to regular bathing and any rotting infant corpses cleared out.
The city, named Glassvault, was quickly occupied with the very clans that had constructed it as well as many others that were entirely in the Bank's thrall. It was well situated to take advantage of the surplus of mining operations on the surrounding plateau - and indeed the entirety of the Dark Lands,as the dawi-zharr had built their tunnels to funnel their resources to Zharr-Naggrund - and Skrisnik stood to make a hefty profit on his investment in just a few years. Then, as he'd predicted, some of the other big players in the Council of Thirteen arrived seeking a share of the prize.
Gnawdell of Mors, Verminkin of Moulder, Morskittar of Skyre, Nurglitch of Pestilens, and the relative newcomer Thugclaw of the Squeakless Snouts moved into the Dark Lands very quickly after they got wind of the bounty the Under-Empire had aquired. Their influence was a force unto itself, and though the Warpfang Bank had established an undeniable position of dominance with their ownership of practically every mining operation present in the fiery plains, Goldfang knew he couldn't prevent them from getting some measure of ownership over the Dark Lands no matter how hard he fought.
So instead he welcomed them in with open arms.
He contrived to meet them one-on-one as they entered his new domain, and proposed to them a deal: he would aid them in setting up strongholds for their clans in the Dark Lands and even agree to let them take a share of the mineral income from the mines near their territory in exchange for recompense. What exactly that recompense was varied for each Council member, and some were far less pleased about the concessions they would need to make than others. Negotiating with the Lord-Warlock of Skyre was particularly onerous, while his meeting with Lord Thugclaw had each walking out grinning, having struck a deal that posed to profit both of them in the future. One way or another, they each agreed to the terms Skrisnik set - some of their clans could've successfully pressured Goldfang into giving them their piece of the Dark Lands without attached strings, but they had business elsewhere and it was either accept the concessions for now or lose out on the Dark Lands to some other clan.
Mors, largely left to its own devices in the aftermath of the battle at Zharr-Naggrund, was able to pressure Goldfang into giving them domain over the ancient dwarf hold of Uzkulak and the entirety of the plateau in the north known as Zorn Uzkul, or the Great Skull Land. With the help of the Warpfang's indentured clans, they refurbished the structure to their needs and that of the Horripila delegation that accompanied them. Gnawdell did not, however, permit the building of Boot Camps in Uzkulak or Zorn Uzkul, still suspicious of Paskrit's true motives.
Morskittar was eventually able to bully the other clans into granting him the Tower of Gorgoth, and the Lord-Warlock met Ikit Claw in the bowels of the stronghold as their clan's engineers ordered around Army rats and a contingent of Horripila specialists. Upon seeing one of the chained-down Hellcannons still writhing against its restraints, he declared that the entire endeavour had been worth it, and ordered his subordinate to continue unravelling the dark secrets of the dawi-zharr.
The red-furred head of Moulder, meanwhile, took hold of making the citadel known as the Black Fortress a suitable habitation for his clan personally. He ensured efforts between his own clan, Horripila, and the USA were smoothly coordinated, and eagerly accepted the integration of the two into his territory - he lost enough warbeasts to infection and other maladies to see the potential benefits of the guidelines Horripila espoused, and the Army was as eager a buyer of Rat-Ogres as any he had ever seen. Lastly, he had the Lammasu in the bowels of the fortress secured in its own specialized chamber. He'd find out whatever qualities it sought in a 'worthy' skaven and then manufacture one such specimen to secure its use for his clan.
Thugclaw and the Squeakless Snouts set up shop in the former base of the ork Waaagh!!! that had ravaged the dawi-zharr, Mount Grimfang, clearing it out thoroughly with stolen warpfire throwers. They accepted the designs of Horripila in the redesign of their new stronghold and were amiable toward the USA as well, although they allowed no Boot Camps in the mountain itself, claiming the sensitivity of their operations would be disrupted by their training. Thus enclosed in their fastness, those members of the clan that weren't engaged in missions elsewhere began the process of spreading their influence through the hidden underbelly that was the skaven criminal world.
Plaguelord Nurglitch, keenly aware of his lack of influence with the Warpfang Bank compared to some on the Council, took what he could get. He and his clan settled in the Daemon's Stump, and began the process of converting it into a suitable plague cathedral. The initiatives of Horripila and the Army were inspected closely to see if they went against the creed of the Horned Rat. After much deliberation, the hygiene program was allowed to be implemented in a small amount of isolated laboratories within the fortress so as to better isolate individual strains of plague. A limited amount of Horripila staff was to stay in the fortress pursuant to this, staying in separate quarters to avoid conflicts over their respective ethical codes. The warp rift in its isolated containment was not tampered with at all, but Nurglitch often ventured down to the outer layer to contemplate what could be done with such a phenomenon.
While the other clans fought over who would get possession of what, the USA and Horripila were working. Sleek Sharpwit eagerly embraced the benefits brought by the hygiene program, not least because of his advancing age and declining health. The Army's training camps were incorporated into the various strongholds across the Dark Lands as the clan heads permitted, and Sleek also ordered several set up all across the smog-choked wastes in order to facilitate training in hostile environments. In each of them the standards set up by the doctors of Horripila were enforced with rigirous discipline, managing to stay pristine even in the midst of the deepest depths of the Dark Lands. When all this was done, both he and Morbag One-Eye turned their attentions towards building up a central outpost to better manage their various enterprises. They ended up setting up a complex based around the needlessly massive edifice once called the Gates of Zharr, not overly impressive compared to the other population centers being set up but immaculately organized and ready for further expansion.
Though a large amount of its resources were spent on aiding their clan leader's journey to the west, Rictus managed to wrangle some of the Warpfang's funds away to comply with Horripila's renovations and send several expeditions into the Plain of Bones, which they had long eyed suspiciously but now looked at with greedy gazes for the treasure trove of materials that would aid them in their cryptic research. None were ever heard from after they entered the dark-magic saturated plain, and Rictus wrote it off in frustration until the Bonelord returned from his excursion.
FInally, just as the efforts to shape the Dark Lands into a new stronghold for skaven habitation drew to a close, something was discovered that justified Skrisnik Goldfang's until-then unexplained instinct to build Glassvault next to the still-smoking site where Zharr-Naggrund used to be. During a routine operation, a lucky (or unlucky, seeing as he was immediately murdered for it) indentured clanrat struck a small deposit of warpstone. After much examination to ascertain where it had come from, it was eventually discovered by the Grey Seers residing in Glassforge that the immense amount of magical energies released in the detonation that had destroyed Zharr-Naggrund had not dissipated afterwards; instead they had stayed in the crater the city had left behind, and begun to curdle and sink into the ground. According to the estimates of the Grey Seers, in as little as three years the entire miles-wide expanse would be comprised of warpstone, by far the largest deposit ever found. The Arch-Economist laughed so hard he ruptured his stomach when he heard.
Dark Lands settlement effort completed with better than expected results due to intervention of multiple members of the Council of Thirteen! Effects include:
- Infiltration has been increased to Very Heavy*, and will increase to Total next turn.
- Occupation has been increased to Very Heavy*, and will increase to Total next turn.
- New settlements - Glassvault, Uzkulak, Tower of Gorgoth, Black Fortress, Daemon's Stump, Mount Grimfang, Gates of War.
- The wealth of the Dark Lands has begun to be exploited earlier than expected, strengthening the Under-Empire as a whole. This effect will increase over time.
The power balance of the Council has shifted significantly! See Council of Thirteen threadmark.
The Warpfang Bank and Clan Horripila have each risen 2 seats in importance, to seats 1 and 5 respectively.
Clans Skyre, Pestilens, and the Order of the Grey Seers have sunk 1 seat in importance each, to seats 2, 9, and 12 respectively.
The Unified Skaven Army has risen 1 seat in importance, to seat 4.
Clan Rictus has sunk 2 seats in importance, to seat 6.
The Warpfang Bank has had an incredible stroke of luck! See Technology threadmark.
Basic Hygiene has been upgraded due to extensive field testing! See Technology threadmark.
Alert - Sleek Sharpwit's health has deteriorated over the course of this turn! See Hero Units.
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In mountains across the world, all was chaos as legions of dragon ogres, awoken by unnaturally gigantic lightning storms, rampaged across their ancient domains anew in accordance of their pact with the Chaos Gods. They who had seen the beginning of the world would help usher in the end. In the World's Edge mountains there roamed Kholek Sun-Eater, who's face was forever obscured behind darkness. Worse monsters than he rose in the Mountains of Mourne, and the world shook at their footsteps.
Their bretheren in the Black Mountains which split the Empire from the Border Princes, meanwhile, were having a rougher time of it.
"Damnable vermin!" Grolknar Shockfang bellowed as he swung his mace about in frustration. "Come out and die against your betters!" Roaring angrily, he charged forward, after the group of ratmen that had fallen back before his unstoppable advance. They had just fled around that rock formation close by, and he would catch up to them and tear them limb from limb! In a flash he thundered around the corner not to behold his prey, but a large pile of opaque glass balls. "What trickery is this," he rumbled, and plucked one of them up between his fingertips.
He held it up to his face for inspection, and didn't even see the bullet that shattered it, spraying glass shards and toxic gas directly into his face. Blinded, he reared back, and could not resist when something slammed into his hind legs, knocking him over. He could hear tiny voices chittering all around him, and waved his arms about in a frenzy, hoping to crush the tricksy ratmen and right himself. All he accomplished was to crush the remainder of the glass orbs, sending yet more toxic fumes cascading down onto his prone form. He thrashed and roared on instinct, inadvertently gulping down great amounts of the gas. He was dreadfully dizzy and there were tiny pinpricks like biting insects all over his skin. He tried to lift his mace but it was too heavy somehow. He felt dreadful weights being placed all over him, on his arms, his legs, his throat. Then nothing.
The grizzled USA sergeant looked up from his latest prize. "Methinks this one's still live-live, squeakers," he announced, to cheers from his company. "How many of ours?" He asked, and was soon grimacing at the casualty results. Even this small dragon ogre, having gulped down enough poison wind to kill a whole clan, on its back where it couldn't right itself easily, with most of its limbs restrained, had left fourteen of his troopers little more than paste on the canyon walls. The things were stupidly tough, and what's worse was they were immune to the more heavy Skyre-pattern weaponry. He didn't like the notion of fighting something he couldn't blow a hole in with a warp-lightning cannon team a tik out.
Still-still, he reflected as he gave orders to have the sedated beast loaded onto the crude rig they'd brought with them, [/i]If the Moulder scuzzers can get whatever makes-makes them lightning-proof it'll be well worth it. Always more dumb-fool muscle for the Army, after all.[/i]
Such scenes were replicated across the Vaults as the USA got to work. The Underlord had plans for the future that did not involve dragon ogres mucking about in skaven territory, and thus they were sent to clean up, as it were. There were initially setbacks, as the attempted use of high-powered Skyre lightning-based weaponry only strengthened the creatures, and most of the more powerful spells of the Grey Seers were neutralized by the same measure. But Warlord-General Paskrit was nothing if not cunning, and she found alternate methods. Dragon ogre hide may be strong enough to shrug off a warpstone bullet, but their eyes were as vulnerable as that of any creature.
Paskrit's campaign housed itself out of Foul Peak, Putrid Stump, and Fester Spike, recruiting all the warlord clans that happened to be in the area to act as chaff. None dared argue with the Council member, and the host of Grey Seers that accompanied her doubly reinforced this. Indeed they actually recieved many volunteers, daring skaven hoping to earn glory under the eyes of the Seerlord. The USA's numbers ballooned, security for the casualties they'd no doubt take during the course of the operation.
The Army's prongs struck out mercilessly at the rampaging dragon ogres, cutting them down with bullet and blade and dragging their corpses back to Skavenblight. But the beasts caused heavy casualties with each encounter, and as the days dragged on the lightning crackling over the mountain peaks intensified more and more, and the dragon ogres they encountered became larger and larger. Worse, they began coordinating, working together to comb the mountains instead of rampaging alone. The Army had to work harder and harder to ensure kills were made.
It all came to a head eventually. In a valley located north of Miragliano a company of stormvermin that had been hunting a particularly large specimen failed to return to the hold. Scouts were sent out after them, to no avail, but three days later a lone survivor returned, bearing troubling news. The raging storms had grown intense enough that a small army of dragon ogres had awoken, or perhaps assembled by the will of their dark masters, lead by several that were far larger and more dangerous than their compatriots. The dread shaggoths of legend had arisen once more. Worse, the host was moving east, towards Foul Peak. Whether by interrogation or information from their dark gods, they had clearly discovered the existence of the skaven in their mountains.
The Warlord-General grinned upon hearing the news. If the dragon ogres wanted a straight fight, she'd oblige them.
-----
They met the dragon ogres in a valley of Paskrit's choosing - a wide, shallow dip in the land, framed on either side by steep mountains, as close to an ideal battleground as she could ask for. She'd placed the bulk of her forces at the bottom of the valley, a great mass of ten thousand clanrats with bunches of her officers scattered about to prevent the rabble from breaking and fleeing too quickly by killing those who expressed cowardly sentiment. They were the bait, a soft force easy for the battle-hungry dragon ogres to charge towards and entertain themselves slaughtering in one convenient place.
She had a different plan in mind, of course. In the mountains to either side, she'd dispatched demolitions teams to hollow away the steep rocky formations. When the enemy was fully committed, the signal would be given to collapse the tunnels and send twin massive rockslides down into the valley, crushing all the combatants then and there. The entirety of what could be called leadership of the dragon ogres would be eliminated with nothing more than a smattering of replaceable meat as collateral.
That was, of course, assuming everything went according to plan, which things so rarely did. If her officers failed and the chattle began to rout, there would be nothing to hold the attention of the dragon ogres to the trapped valley, and they would likely continue on their current path to Foul Peak. But she had the Grey Seers for that eventuality. She mostly avoided the camp of the priests, who had lit up the night with the green glow of their ritual circles they'd been preparing for quite some time now, but she knew well the power of the backup plan they could enact. Everything would be fine. Even should the worst happen and the Seer's countermeasure fail, she had the elite of her forces held in reserve - their weapons would surely be enough to eliminate the leadership of this group.
That didn't change her visceral reaction when the dragon ogres crested the ridge, however.
It was night when the host of creatures arrived, and the rain was driving down in sheets that matted down Paskrit's fur and blurred her vision even through her Warplock Optics. Lightning crested down from the angry clouds in sweeping lines with a fury and frequency she hadn't seen before and the wind howled through the mountain peaks in an angry chorus. Altogether, one of the worse storms she'd been through in her life. She was considering retiring to her on-site burrow for the moment when everyone present heard it. Amidst the everpresent thunderclaps and pattering of the freezing rain ... roaring, overpowering the wind.
Paskrit and her command staff froze in place, eyes fixed on the end of the valley. The bellowing intensified against all logic, a primal callback to days of yore when ancient monsters ruled the earth. Now there was clashing interspersed with the sound, like a gigantic bell being set off hundreds of times over, a harsh clanging echoing off the valley walls. It promised blood and death to all who heard it, and down in the dip of the valley Paskrit could see the miniscule flashes that indicated her officers were having to execute the cowardly amongst their ranks already. Damn-damn, she thought, too soon, and gasped as her eyes darted back up to the lip of the valley. There they were.
Cresting the ridge were ... by the God Below, how many were there? Her eyes flickered back and forth across the ranks of scaled titans crossing the mountains, seeing hardened muscle and sharpened horn, noting their cruel-edged weapons and clenched fists. They moved with a surety of purpose and sense of power that dwarfed even the most vicious of Moulder's beasts. They looked as if they were the storm come to life, rank upon rank of dragon ogre bellowing an ancient unceasing war song. She counted more or less three hundred of them, with at least ten amongst them who stood taller than all their bretheren and fairly crackled with an aura of lightning. They lead the horde, and as one of them raised its axe and bellowed loud enough that she could hear it clear across the valley, she knew those must be the shaggoths of legend.
They moved unnaturally quickly, their scaled feet and claws letting them run across the wet stone without slipping or stumbling, and in the inconstant light of the lightning overhead they almost seemed to flicker forward between each flash. They leaped forward in such a manner, a small spearhead compared to the thousands of skaven they charged towards, but when they impacted the massed ranks of Paskrit's bait the force of their impact sent bodies flying ten feet or more into the air. Their axes bit through three skaven at a time, and the massed ranks of the clanrats seemed to not matter at all to them - indeed, they hardly slowed down, continuing the charge through their ranks with the ease of primeval titans.
"Messenger!" She snapped, eyes fixed on the battle. "Tell-tell the Seers to engage the countermeasure. Now-now!" The skaven she'd appointed to carry messages to the wizard-priests blanched and scampered off. She cast her gaze to the mountains on either side. "Why are they not fall-falling yet?! Someone launch the signal flares. Go-go!" She exclaimed, her voice lashing out like a whip, cutting through the stunned silence that gripped her surroundings. Orders started being bellowed once more, and her officers began moving, the urgency of the situation clear to them. Even now she could see the back lines of the bait begin to break and run, though the flashes of her officer's guns were near-constant. Won't be long-long before they turn on them, she thought as she watched a row of repurposed Doomrockets spiral into the air and detonate in a flare of green light as they crashed into each other. With luck the damned demolitions teams would see it and collapse the rock like they were supposed to.
The dragon ogres continued scything through her lines, and far too quickly for her liking the inevitable occurred and the bait began to rout. She couldn't see the blades sliding into the backs of her officers and those few who attempted to hold, but she knew it was happening as she watched the ranks of clanrats unanimously turn and run, while the echoing laughter of the dragon ogres echoed out across the peaks as they chased their prey down. The rain redoubled, and through the water-coated lenses she wore she watched the war group scatter somewhat and apparently relish in the slaughter.
Then the Bells pealed out and none of that mattered.
Thirteen they were, tarnished and cracked hanging from their frameworks, but when they sounded they were louder than the storm and louder than their fear.
They sounded once and the retreat slowed. Twice their sacred tones echoed out as they rolled down the slope toward the conflict, and those close enough stopped in their tracks. Thrice, four, five, six times they sounded and the skaven turned back to those who hunted them. Seven, eight, nine and their chittering warcries sounded in complement to the Bells. Ten, eleven, twelve and the clanrats were throwing themselves at the dragon ogres in a frenzy, using their numbers to surround each beast, though they were still cut down as if wheat in a field.
Thirteen times the Bells pealed and the divine stepped forth into the world.
[Verminlord Summoning: 12]
The mountain stone wept beneath their feet and the air crackled with the power of their swords. Thirteen in number they were, and they stood taller even than the dragon ogres they now stared contemptuously at. The Verminlords burned with a radiance that dissolved any rain that came within a foot of them, sending clouds of green steam floating up to the skies. At their sight every skaven on the field let out a bonechilling shriek and leapt at the foe with fur standing on end. Paskrit grinned ferally at the sight. With the underlingsof the Horned Rat themselves in this battle, victory was assured! They would annihilate the shaggoths and ... her eyes narrowed as she noted something. Are they carrying gun-guns?
The weapons the daemons carried were not swords as she had initially assumed, for they did not rush to engage the dragon ogre host in melee, though it had been temporarily pinned by the resurgent remains of her bait forces. Instead they resembled long halberds with tangles of wire spiralling around the shaft and into the flesh of their wielders, that glowed an eerie green around the blade. Zooming in closer, she could see what looked like targeting focii clustered around what was now clearly a focus of some kind, and multiple other metallic spikes seemingly bolted into the flesh of the Verminlords. They had bulky packs on their backs, almost resembling fuel canisters. The design reminded her of something, but she couldn't recall what. Regardless, the daemons seemed content to stay at a distance rather than clash with the enemy.
Her focus was temporarily taken from the underlings of the God Below by the earsplitting crack of stone. Looking up at the mountains above, Paskrit hissed in jubilation as she saw the high cliffs sundered by explosions from within the rock, sending twin cascades of stone down into the valley below. Her trap had worked! Casting her gaze down into the fighting once more, she confirmed that the dragon ogres, though close to breaking out of the ragged remnants of her bait, were still well within the impact zone of the rockslides. The Verminlords would be able to hold the beasts back for long enough that the trap would work. Regardless of their odd reluctance to engage in close combat, the daemons were more than a match for even those ancient monsters.
Her eyes flickered to the Verminlords and her heart skipped three beats. Flickering around them, arcing between the metal spikes in their arms and their strange gun-swords, were coruscating auras of white light, and the boxy packs on their backs were glowing an ever-brighter green. The sight set her teeth tingling, though she couldn't say why. It was only when one of the by-now frequent sheets of lightning arced down to strike the mountain peaks in the distance that she realized what the weapons of the daemons reminded her so strongly of.
Lightning cannons. They're carrying warp-lightning cannons, the fool-fools! Don't they realize what-what that will do?! She opened her mouth to bark an order but paused - how did one order an agent of the divine apex of their race to stop what they were doing? By the time the thought ran through her head, it was too late. The crackling aura around the daemons of the Horned Rat had built to a crescendo and turned radioactive green, and thirteen streaks of emerald plasma launched themselves at the dragon ogre host with a clap of air that could be heard from end to end of the valley. The monsters roared, though it was impossible to tell if in exultation or agony, and those few clanrats that remained evaporated under the force of the warp-lightning streams that rocketed around the entire general area.
One moment the dragon ogres were enveloped in lightning, the next they were covered entirely by the rockslides inoxerably crashing down from the remains of the cliffs enough. The sound was louder than even the previous conflagaration, a primal rumbling and crushing that enveloped the scaled bodies of the monsters and buried them in stone and mud. The valley was suddenly very quiet as the Verminlords powered down their weapons and stopped their lightshow, leaving afterimages in Paskrit's eyes. The roaring rush of battle faded, replaced by the everpresent pattering of the rain. The lightning in the sky above seemed less threatening now without the dragon ogres. Still, she was not about to take chances. Snapping out of her daze, she ordered her reserve forces forward, taking the lead. They were going to comb through the wreckage of that valley and extract every broken, bloodied dragon ogre corpse they could find. After considering, she ordered the Seers to come along as well. With luck, if one or two dragon ogres had survived the priests would be intelligent enough not to blast the things with lightning.
-----
They spent several days digging through the rubble, occasionally coming across a dragon ogre. Some of the weaker ones had died from accumulated wounds inflicted by the bait horde combined with the rockslide, but most were still alive, if severely weakened, no doubt due to the massive dose of electricity the Verminlords had given them. Paskrit had had the Grey Seers dismiss all but one of them after the battle, seeing as they were no longer needed. Even the shaggoths that had led the horde, though they had survived virtually unscathed - some had even begun to dig their way out - were easily cut down with only a few dozen killed for each. All except for one in particular - the last they found. That one had been ... trouble.
-----
Paskrit scrambled back across the rocks as another hail of warpstone bullets cracked into the air and bounced off the skin of the elecrified titan rampaging towards her. "Where-where IS EVERYONE?!" She shrieked to any subordinate that could hear, grabbing a stray pistol off the ground and emptying the gun at the advancing dragon ogre, only to see the bullets evaporate in midair. "Dunno, Warlord-General! Must-must be back at camp!" Came the answer from the closest officer. "Not much-much help, Skrik!" She bellowed back. Then the shaggoth was upon them, emerald lightning dancing across its skin and massive axe. It swung its weapon with murderous speed, clearly still energized from the dose of warplightning it had recieved days ago. Paskrit darted aside as it clove through her helpless officers and scrambled up a back leg, making her way to its back and stabbing frantically at its neck. But her blade merely bounced off the hide of the creature, and did nothing but draw its attention. With a dismissive huff, it plucked her off its back and hurled her aside, knocking her breath and a significant amount of vomit out of her as she impacted a nearby rockface. She spent the next minute hacking her lungs out, and it was only a dreadful humming that brought her head snapping up.
The sole remaining Verminlord faced the shaggoth from a distance. Even as her mind leaped with hope, she noted that it still held the same lightning-casting weapon. Her expression flattened as it pointed the barrel towards the shaggoth and let loose, to the evident glee of the dragon ogre, which spread its arms wide, exulting in the bath of rejuvenating energies. The Verminlord's reaction was merely to turn some sort of dial on the side of its weapon, which amplified the stream of lightning pouring from its nozzle. Does it not learn-realize? She wondered as the shaggoth began walking towards the daemon, teeth bared in a feral grin.
The matter became moot as the Verminlord's form suddenly flickered, its outline flowing and warping like a candleflame. It screeched something, but whatever it intended to say was distorted into a high-pitched squeal as the whole essence of the daemon distorted and morphed into one smooth stream of etheric energy that flowed into an indistinct figure behind it. As the skaven drank in the essence of the daemon, it began glowing a brilliant electric green, casting sillhouettes of itself all over the surroundings. When she spotted the long horns atop its head, Paskrit grinned. It was about time the Seerlord put himself to work.
The dragon ogre chuckled, its voice deep and resonant, crackling and crumbling. "More vermin," it spoke in a voice tinged with lightning. "Good. Rat taste is never tiring. More is good." It hefted its axe and continued to approach Kritislik's glowing figure at a slow, measured pace. The Seerlord replied quietly, and Paskrit had to strain to hear his reply, but his words carried themselves unnaturally far.
"As you wish, scalehorsething."
Rats began to boil up from the ground at his words, sleek bodies oozing up from crevices in the rock too small to hold anything, multiplying from any shadow in the vicinity, slipping out of the very air with bright, hungry eyes. A carpet of rodentflesh rose from the world, silently rushing towards the shaggoth. Within seconds they had materialized in such numbers as to reach the ankles of the ancient dragon ogre, and the sound of chewing echoed up from where he stood in the flood of rats. It bellowed, more in shock than pain, and began to stomp down at the endless tide of rodents. Many were crushed beneath its hooves, but for each crushed there seemed to be a hundred slipping out of the crevices between the other rodents. They were climbing the shaggoth's legs now, an oozing pool of fur slowly crawling up its scaled flesh. Blood began to spurt up from where thousands of pairs of teeth tore their way into immortal flesh, and the shaggoth howled in agony. It smote the vermin with enough electrical power to set an entire forest aflame, but they smothered it with their bodies. They were voracious, chewing their way into its flesh through weak spots in the creases of its legs, devouring all they touched. Soon the shaggoth could not stand anymore for lack of feet, and fell into the seething tide of vermin. The thrashing stopped eventually, and when the seemingly endless sea of rats retreated back into the crevices and shadows of the world, there were only a few drops of blood left to mark the death of the ancient monster.
-----
Afterwards, Paskrit had an extensive talk with the Seerlord about what exactly had caused the Verminlords to behave as they had, and of the odd resemblance of their weaponry to some Skyre experimental designs. This did not bear much fruit, for while Kritislik had been studying the Horned Rat's theology for his entire life and knew that the variety of his servants was manifold, he had never encountered this particular variety of Verminlord. Regardless, he was eager to look into the matter when time permitted.
After the host of three hundred was crushed, no more significant concentrations of dragon ogres cropped up in the mountains, though Paskrit suspected there would have been more if she had not acted when she did. There were still a small amount of the beasts roaming the peaks, and she suspected more would awaken as time went on, but for now the threat to the Vaults was extinguished.
Dragon Ogre hazard in the Vaults surpressed successfully!
Dragon Ogre Remains gained! See Technology tab.
Dragon Ogre Captives gained! See Technology tab.
----------
In times past the Vitae river had nourished the entirety of Nekehara, growing its crops and providing water for the people. Now it carried death through the land as the Mortis, its waters toxic to the point that they stripped skin off of muscle. The crews of most ships would refuse to even enter its waters, no matter what treasures might lie in the land of the dead.
It was fortunate in that sense that the crew of the ship currently sailing up the Mortis did not have lives to preserve.
It was utterly silent as it drifted upriver, its sails half-filled by a wind that did not exist outside of the confines of the vessel. Its crew made no noise as they operated it, did not visibly communicate or interact with each other as they ensured the ship stayed on course. The fact that they were not even alive, but skeletons animated by some sort of magic only added to the eerie atmosphere of the ship, which was in ill repair - its timbres were rotting, sails mouldy and slack, and the deck was perpetually slimy no matter how vigirously the skeletons scrubbed. Even combined with the perpetual chill, it still suited the captain just fine.
"Tell-tell me again what it is we are looking for?" Asked Skretch Half-Dead. He sneezed, shaking his head to attempt to dislodge his perpetually clogged sinuses. He scratched at his dull brown fur, which always seemed to be damp, as he looked askance at the only other living skaven on the ship, though living seemed to be pushing it.
"It will be obvious-plain to your eyes when we arrive," rasped Kratch Doomclaw, head of clan Rictus. Skretch couldn't see much of the venerable member of the Council of Thirteen under the ragged black robes he wore, but he could smell his somewhat unique odor of vinegar and the sickly sweet aroma of a deathbed. His bone-white, furless snout poking out of his hood twitched slightly. "For now I wish-wish to focus on you, dear Skretch. Are you absolutely certain-sure you do not wish-desire to join my clan? Even your eyes can see-see the inefficiencies in your minions, and to mine, why, I can sense-sense the sluggishness of the corpse geometry of your ship in my very skin-skin. I could help you make it ... greater than it is. It would help-help us both..."
Skretch surpressed a shudder at the unnatural way the Bonelord's breath trailed off like a punctured lung. For all the convenience aquiring this ship had been, it was at times like this that it seemed more trouble than it was worth. "I humbly thank-praise you for your magnamious offer, oh almighty Bonelord," he replied, "But my duties in the Royal Navy must-must unfortunately take precedence. The revered Admiral would have-have my tail if I abandoned my post without leave." More accurately, Cap'n Vrisk didn't seem to care much what exactly he did, hence why he was ferrying the head of another clan into the Dead Lands, just so long as he owned him, and thus his ship, which seemed to be his real interest.
Lord Doomclaw let out a sigh that sounded more like a deathrattle. "I will speak-squeak to Ironscratch on the matter," he promised. "I see-see the trepidation that holds you back from true greatness, and if I had you in my grasp I could quash-smush it in an instant," he exclaimed, clenching a bone-white fist, which he quickly covered up again with his sleeve. "But we will discuss this again later. I will rest-retire in my room now. Inform me when we are near-near." With that, the Bonelord began walking towards the interior of the ship.
"B-but honored Councilmember," Skretch called out, "You never-never informed me what we are look-looking for!"
"You will know-realize when you see-see it," came the answer.
-----
Several days upriver, Skretch realized what Kratch Doomclaw had meant. Visible from quite a long ways away was another of the necropolis cities the dead things inhabited, even larger than the one he'd had to sneak past to get here, and across the Mortis ... It was gargantuan. Standing almost obscenely tall, built to exacting specification, a clean black triangle jutting out against the sky, radiating power even to one without magic such as he ... this was clearly whatever the Bonelord had been seeking. The Councilmember's reaction upon climbing the deck only confirmed it - he wheezed out laughter of a kind, and directed Skretch to get him to the bank of the river at nightfall. Skretch happily aquiesced, eager to be by himself again without having to worry about the other skaven experimenting with the magic that no doubt kept the ship from sinking. As the sun set, he painstakingly maneuvered the ship over to the correct bank with a great deal of difficulty, and the Bonelord scurried onto shore and vanished into the night. Skretch, relieved to have the unnerving necromancer off his ship, sailed a bit downriver until he found a convenient place to moor the vessel and waited. Doomclaw hadn't known how long he'd be, but given the size of the pyramid he was entering Skretch guessed he had at least a week or so before he'd have to start looking for him.
-----
Elsewhere in Nekehara...
Tretch Craventail ran for his life. This wasn't exactly a new activity for him, but it was distinguished from the numerous other occasions by what exactly he was running from. He glanced behind him hurriedly and oh yes the skeletons were gaining. Thinking fast, he tripped an unfortunate clanrat who was running beside him with his tail, leaving him to be savaged by the advancing skeletons. His fellow's screams propelled him faster into the desert.
He'd been unsure of this whole endeavour from the start, when his overlord Kratch Doomclaw passed off the responsibility of infiltrating the land of the dead to him. He didn't know how to infiltrate anything, much less a desert filled with skaven-hating magical bones! But, well-aware of his expendability to his necromantic leader, he obeyed, and did his best to get more skaven eyes and ears into Nekehara. Needless to say, this didn't go overly well.
From the start, of course, there was dissent, the usual ambitious bunch thinking they could lead better than he could. In between dodging assassination attempts, he dealt with these by sending the most obvious troublemakers right into the center of the desert, playing off their egoes by promising to acknowledge their leadership once they'd set up an enclave and returned. None of them ever did, of course.
Then there was the issue of the Dead Lands being ... well, dead. There was no drinkable water to be found once one got too far into Nekehara, and food was nonexistent, making setting up spying posts difficult at best. He did what he could, sending his underlings to set up spy warrens around the outskirts, in and around the mountains. For a time, this was moderately successful - they couldn't observe the bonethings up close, but they could spy on their movements from afar.
Then one of his idiotfooldumbstupid underlings - or perhaps more than one, he was never sure - allowed themselves to be discovered by roaming skeletons somehow. This quickly lead to several small armies of undead marching right out of the desert and putting them all to the sword, and forcing Tretch to engage in far more exercise than he enjoyed. Fortunately, after he did escape and make his way back to Crookback Mountain (and what a hellhole of a trek that was, he didn't even like to think about it), he eventually recieved messages from a few stray outposts that the bonethings had apparently missed in their haste. Evidently whatever leader they had, likely the Settra they'd kept constantly shouting, had plans for elsewhere for now. Tretch was somewhat grateful for that, as it kept him out of the lands of the bonethings for the time being. If he was lucky, he'd never have to return!
...
He knew his luck didn't work like that, though.
-----
It was a moonless night and Skretch was pacing back and forth on his deck while his crewmembers silently rowed just enough to keep the ship in place. When was Doomclaw going to return? In the past few days he'd seen a worrying amount of activity in the dead city across the river from the black pyramid, and he was beginning to worry about being discovered. "If he doesn't get back-back here by morning, I'm leaving. Council of Thirteen or not, I don't want to know-know what the bonethings would do to me if I were trapped-caught."
"Truly, that would be unfortunate," a voice sounded out from somewhere behind him, causing him to shriek, vent his musk glands, and whirl around, sword in hand. This turned out to be a useless measure, as the Bonelord was standing a good distance away from Skretch. "Oh. It is ... my true-truly deepest apologies, Bonelord. When-when did you..."
"I discovered-learned much in the Black Pyramid," Kratch interjected. "I do wish-wish I could have stayed longer, but alas the bonethings in Khemri stir-awaken. We must away before they catch onto us."
"As you say," replied Skretch, disquieted at the ... whatever it was about the Bonelord that had unnerved him before, it seemed to have amplified. Like he wasn't quite real, somehow. At his thoughts, his skeletal crewmembers turned the ship around and they began their journey out of Nekehara. Skretch hoped the Bonelord wouldn't enlist him in something like this again.
Infiltration attempts in Nekehara were hindered by the hostility of the environment and the impossibility of blending in with the natives. A few scattered enclaves were overlooked for now, however. Nekehara's infiltration rating has not been increased, but instead changed to None*, which will occasionally provide very general information on an irregular basis.
Tretch Craventail has had a (yet another) harrowing experience and survived unscathed once more! See Heroes threadmark.
Bonelord Kratch Doomclaw's powers of necromancy have grown considerably from his investigation of the Black Pyramid! See Heroes threadmark.
----------
Cathay stood as the greatest center of civilization the world over save for the venerable high elves in fabled Ulthuan, even moreso now that the Dragon Emperor had returned to lead his people in their time of need. From his austere palace of the Forbidden City, orders raced out near-constantly, Shen Huanglong's draconic wisdom guiding his people towards prosperity. Already reported food and materials production was significantly up due to several streamlining reforms he had put through, the armies he had manned the Great Bastion with were reporting relatively easy repulsion of the initial waves of mutated barbarians from the north, and corruption both internal and external was being hunted down and purged with prejudice. The Dragon's Land was a power on the rise as the End Times crashed into the world, and it was only natural that the lesser beings of the earth would seek to bring such an exemplar of greatness down out of spiteful envy. It was the way of things, just as it was their place to be crushed under the fist of the armies of the Huan.
Off the eastern coast, the feudal lords of Nippon seethed at the news that their ancient enemy had risen again. Many spent days in contemplation in their family archives, reciting the names of each of their lineage who had been felled by the dragon. The list was extensive for all of them, and now they readied themselves for the notion that they might be the ones to finally avenge their family.
Nippon mustered for war - levies were called up from their villages, hard-eyed peasants training for battle with a steely discipline. Priests of the ka, normally content to wander about the countryside, congregated in towns and cities, investing much effort to ensure that the weapons and armor of the soldiers were as invested in the fight as their wielders. The senshi brought out ancient and revered tomes and sets of weapons, devised long ago by the greatest scholars in the land to bring down the Dragon-Emperor. The best among their number were chosen to wield the long, curved hooks that seethed with angry spirits, to hold the bow and arrow loaded with blinding powder, to swing the great lengths of spiked chain and throw the thousand-bladed javelin. Their every move was part of a doctrine so refined down the years that it had almost become a ritual, one they yearned to fulfil by taking the beast's head.
Some of the more unorthodox shogun, however, feared that sticking to the methods their ancestors had tried would only lead to further failure. They sent missives to tribes of Oni in their domains, promising great quantities of alcohol in exchange for their services in battle, and enlisted many woods witches and magical animals, giving great concessions to the creatures of the wilds for the potent advantages they could bring in battle. Some even managed to lure the wild tengu down from the mountains, bribing whole tribes of them with great quantities of shiny stones.
A conclave of the more powerful shogun did as they had done in days past, and sent their youngest children blindfolded, hands bound behind their back, out into the night. Several days later they awoke to find shadows sitting on their chests, and in a panic recited the words their ancestors had when dealing with the Yami, an oath affirming their sacrifice of one of their own, and a substantial portion of their own wealth, in exchange for the night clans to do as they had done before and make an attempt at the Dragon-Emperor's life. They were surprised to find their treasures refused, though their children were kept. The Yami had a score to settle with Shen Huanglong and those whose council he kept, and needed no payment to draw their knives against the dragon.
And one confident fool, wanting to ensure victory against his ancestral foe and imprint his name with glory for all time, dared to disturb a beast far greater than even that which he wished to slay. The Shattā-on were known to most of Nippon as no more than a fairy tale, a race of rats made of darkness formed from the sin in the hearts of men, who had long ago threatened to overthrow the land and cast eternal darkness upon the world before they had been thrown deep underground by the combined efforts of every ka. To those who delved deeper into their lore, the Chittering Shadows were a sleeping leviathan under every major city, pacified only by the willing transferrence of the arts of the Yami. They conducted trade with their aboveground neighbors through certain shady merchants, and could give one great treasures if they were so inclined. But Tokugawa Nobunaga, the most powerful warlord in Nippon, was not frightened by the fears of lesser men. He set his underlings on finding an entrance to one of their lairs, and upon locating it, walked into their den of shadows alone. Three days passed, and the shogun emerged, none the worse for wear but looking profoundly shaken. Once safely ensconced in his fortress, he ordered for several of his most skilled Supirittosheipā to travel to the underground lair of the Eshin, and contacted several witches of the wilds he had conducted deals with before. Over the course of a few weeks, several of the elusive spellcasters travelled to the lair of the Shattā-on, trailed by a great amount and variety of magical creatures from deep within the wilds. Tokugawa Nobunaga could not rest easy after what he had seen in the lair of the Chittering Shadows, but he knew that the deal he had made with them was worth it. It had to be.
-----
It was a moonless night when Eshin struck at Cathay. All along the southeastern coast, sentinels watched from high points in fishing villages and fortified docks alike, the product of the Dragon Emperor mandating surveillance on Nippon's most likely invasion points, while small detachments of soldiers conducted loose patrols around the countryside, combing for potential advance scouts. None of this saved them. Torches were extinguished and fires guttered low without discernible reasons. The night was overcast, and the clouds seemed to thicken, obscuring even the light of the stars.
The shadows came alive, snatching up lonely watchmen in their watchtowers and pairs of guards on patrol alike. None were even given time to scream, nor was there opportunity to run. Whole groups of soldiers vanished into the night, never to be seen again. But the acolytes of the darkness were not done there, and slipped out of nook and cranny in dozens of villages along the coast. Some of their more aware victims managed to gasp a breath in panic, a breath that was invariably their last, for the Yami walked alongside Eshin for the first time in centuries. Both the Yami's King in Shadow, Enma, and Sneek, Eshin's Lord of Night, participated in multiple assaults on larger garrisons that the clans encountered in the north of their operational zone. Both of them operated on their own, and both claimed as many lives as any hundred of their underlings combined. By the time they were done, all the soldiers Cathay had stationed along its coastal villages had vanished as though they had never been there. There was nothing in place to stop Nippon's fleets from landing, which they did with trivial ease. The Cathayan peasants they found were weak, peaceful folk unlike their Nipponese bretheren, not capable of fighting off their merciless attackers. They were by and large run down with ease by the jubilant troops of Nippon, who took great satisfaction in forcibly evicting what they saw as squatters on their ancestral lands. Even those who attempted to flee were caught and taken by the Yami and Eshin. Within a week, Nippon's armies had landed and began to move into Cathay's southeastern borders, all without any word reaching the Dragon Emperor.
Nippon's dealings with Eshin were a success! See Exploitable Assets.
Eshin collaboration with the Night Clans of Nippon has allowed the bulk of Nippon's military forces to land undetected on Cathay's eastern coast!
----------
"Now-now, acolyte," proclaimed Skrolk, "Add the God's droppings. Carefully, we must-must reach the optimum balance."
"Yes-yes, oh Papus Pestilens," replied Helkic Stain, utterly fervent in the presence of the scion of disease amongst skavenkind. Taking a preperatory breath to steady her limbs, she picked up a cauldron of liquid warpstone and carefully began pouring it in a steady stream into the larger cauldron that Skrolk was attending, the psycho-acidic puree beginning to dissolve the various ingredients of corruption the plague pope had directed her to place within. The left venom gland of a Khuresh viper, the roots of a thrice-rotted tuber harvested from Talabecland, the necrosis-afflicted heart of a human infant, several strange idols - apes and birds and other creatures, oddly distorted and misshapen. As the cauldron filled with putrid odors and the sickly green glow of the sacred warpstone, Skrolk began to stir the contents around with an ancient paddle, encrusted with the husks of countless such pastes. He threw his whole body into the motion of stirring, almost rolling his torso above the froth with each pass. He chanted with each stroke, uttering the sacred words in a religious daze. "Oh God who fathers the vermintide, oh God who keeps the warrens, oh God who claims the changing stone, oh God who owns our thoughts, oh God who blesses us with contagion, oh God who devours the feeble..."
Thirteen times did Skrolk name an aspect of the Horned Rat, thirteen times did he name a deed of the God Below, thirteen times did he name a servant of the Horned One, on and on until he had beseeched his divine progenitor in his hundred sixty-nine facets and churned the by-now diseased and toxic mix one hundred sixty-nine times. Then did he ask his god for a favour, for him to bless the mixture his unworthy hands had prepared with properties of weakness and fatigue, of lethargy and wasting. He beseeched his god thirteen times thusly, and upon the thirteenth incantation ... Helkic couldn't quite explain what she saw. She was versed in the theology of Pestilens, she had earned her rank as plague priest as well as the next skaven, but to see what looked to be ... her eyes couldn't process it. A gargantuan eye seemed to peer upon the cauldron for a split second, or the very tip of an incomprehensibly large claw extruded through space itself to tap the mixture, or an unbearably acrid speck of ... discarded skin landed in the solution. It was all of these and more, a fragment of something far greater than she, its attention falling upon the contents of the cauldron for the most infintisemal amount of time possible. It hurt her head to behold even that fragment of a fragment, and she could feel the blood vessels in her eyes crack. When she blearily managed to clear her vision somewhat, she glanced once at the mixture in the sacred cauldron and then no more. She knew mortal disease, knew shit and tainted blood and bile like she knew her own skin, but this was beyond her for the moment. It radiated sloth, and sapped her spirit even by being near it. Skrolk, on the other hand, took in great gulps of the fumes the divine mixture gave off and seemed invigorated by it. "Ah, but do not shy away from the gift-gifts of the God, dear Helkic," he rhapsodized. "For even as they corrode-taint your flesh and soul, so do they give-give your essence over to the Horned One! As you become less-less, you are more, the sacrifice He Below made to create his children is replenished, the debt-debt of our existence repaid." Helkic hesitated, understandably wary of the prospect of dissolving her soul over time in exchange for knowledge of the divine. Seeing the trepidation in her eyes, the Plague Pope changed tack.
"Look-look upon yourself, my child. See your beautiful form, your skin harboring fungi beyond count, your blood-blood thick with contagion and rot. All of your physicality has been given over to disease for the sake-sake of your knowledge. You never once-once hesitated, did you? Not when you drank-drank the pus of tetanus-afflicted wounds to study its effects, not when you bathed your skin-skin in necrotic toxins I can smell squirming in your muscle fibres still, and not when you tried and fail-failed to recreate the Black Plague."
Helkic froze. How-how does he know?! I destroyed it all once I recovered, and kill-killed all who were with me. Am I to be use-used as an example?
The Papus Pestilens chuckled magnamiously. "Worry-gnaw your tail not, dear Helkic. None have ever remade what I made those long times past, but many-many try at one point or another. Those who grow close-close are scarred by the experience, and those who do not die-die. You were neither, and this sets you apart. Do you know what you were missing, ratling, in your attempt?"
Helkic's mind was fuzzed by the haze of the sloth-inducing mixture and Skrolk's words, which were so very honeyed and compelling. She sluggishly shook her head. "No, Papa Skrolk," she slurred. The Plague Pope grinned, his blackened teeth glistening wetly in the green light of the plague cauldron. "Faith," he answered. "The soul-soul is merely one more body part, Helkic. You have cast your mortal self into sickness to know-know your art, but until you infuse your divine essence with the stuff of the God Below you will never grasp-grasp the higher echelons of decay. The apex is blend-blending the two, seeing the divine infinitude in the finite mortality of our world."
"Y-yyeeessshh, Papusss..."
"As you are destroyed and decayed, you are reborn." Skrolk gestured to his divine paste, which stank with a stench that defied natural law. "Come-come. Drink of the God and let-let Him drink of you. Let your soul be filled with sacred rot."
Seized by something she could not explain - perhaps this was what they called faith? - Helkic stumbled forward and drank of the corrupt broth. She tumbled to the ground near-immediately, writhing in pain not physical, for what had been touched was not in her body but something more intimate, more sacred than that. It was the innermost core of her being she could feel blistering and rotting, and it hurt in a way nothing else ever had or could. Through it all, Skrolk was with her, clutching her claw in his own and murmuring sweet sentiment of decay. The words were indistinct, but the message clear.
Pain is blessing. Decay renewal. Suffering sacred. Hope death. Entropy life.
When Helkic arose from her delerium thirteen days later, the world had had a film taken off it. Everything was so much clearer, the reasons for her worldy concerns so ... petty compared to what she could now intuit with ease. She was grateful beyond words to Lord Skrolk for his boon, and they spent many hours in sacred communion, exchanging and enhancing corruption between them, rotting her soul yet further as they worked on the Underlord's decree. The paste of sloth was only the beginning, which went through thirteen stages of refinement and enhancement, their keen eyes ensuring the symbology of the supernatural plague was in the correct alignment. When it was finished, it would be more than just a plague against Cathay - it would be a plague against herself, to test and experiment metaphysically just as she had catalogued her own biology so long ago.
Her spirit soared even as it was eaten away.
-----
The plague began in the Kwai-To plains, though no one could truly tell where exactly. The first victims seemed to pop out of the ground, fatigued, jaundiced, and exhibiting the wheezing that soon became the most readily identifiable syndrome of the newly-titled Wheezing Slumber. It spread quickly, and soon one in three people from Kwai to Julun were afflicted with the disease. Aside from the obvious symptoms, the ailment also degraded motor functions of the infected, making it difficult for them to sustain themselves without assistance from their family members, who invariably became infected themselves in the process. In the duty-oriented, familycentric culture of Cathay, such an illness inevitably became a great burden upon all who were touched by it. Children were forced to stay home from school to care for their parents and siblings, farms lay untouched for lack of people to man them, and productivity in Cathay's breadbasket came crashing down. Worse, it was uncertain how long the symptoms persisted - the earliest cases still showed no sign of abating. It was not long before word was sent to the Forbidden City begging for aid, as the Kwai-To plains were depended on to help supply the numerous armies that were currently necessary to defend the realm. The Dragon Emperor responded with an appropriate amount of swiftness, as the many seemingly independent initiatives to favourably streamline the bureaucratic processes in their direction indicated.
First there came a great wave of healers, village medicinemen and scholarly doctors alike drawn together by the pressing need. They travelled from village to village in small groups, utilizing the utmost hygenic precision in examining their patients and attempting to discern the cause. Nontheless, a number of them still fell ill, and the initiative was ultimately scrapped.
Second came the monks - part of the Moth's Fur order, hailing from a monastery at the source of the River of Sighs, they were in the process of travelling to the Great Bastion and diverted their course when they sensed the disorderliness of the spirits of the afflicted. Their order was greatly skilled in the arts of healing the body and soul, and through the power of their meditations they remained untouched by the wheezing slumber. They could not remain long, for they were needed at the Bastion to aid with the recovery of the many wounded in Shen Huanglong's armies as they repelled the armies of Disorder. But through their arts, many were lifted from the disease, though they did warn the grateful victims to be wary of reinfection, for they could feel that they had not aquired an immunity from their ordeal. After a few blessed weeks, the monks departed with solemn faces, for their duty called to them.
Third and lastly came the 'specialists'. Coming directly under the Dragon Emperor's orders, they were a conclave of men and women clad wholly in white, shaved of all hair, and branded with a symbol in the center of their foreheads - something in a strange language that was unnerving to gaze upon directly. One was assigned to each afflicted area, and they worked with superb grace and efficiency, setting up areas where the afflicted would easily be cared for, keeping immaculate records, and administering a wide variety of medicines, recording with exacting detail the effects of each concoction. They rarely spoke, and sometimes took patients into isolated care for a day or so. They were contemplative when presented with the revelation that the arts of the monks had helped where conventional healing had not. They convened in Julun briefly, then returned to their assigned areas, ready to attempt a new method of treatment. They would excise the bloat of sickness from their patients just as quickly and efficiently as the Emperor even now did to his country.
Helkic Stain has undergone tutelage from Pope Skrolk himself, and has been enlightened by the experience! She is close to becoming a full-fledged hero unit. See Heroes threadmark.
The Wheezing Slumber has been unleashed upon centralwest Cathay! A nonlethal but extremely debilitating disease that lasts an extremely long time, if it ever goes away at all, it has reduced production in that region of the country by a significant degree.
----------
The Mountains of Mourne had never exactly been called a safe place, but in the End Times there was no safety in those mountains, only relative measures of reduced peril. More dragon ogres rampaged through the peaks here than any other place in the world, save perhaps for the World's Edge mountains. The creatures, the vast majority of which had been slumbering for uncounted millennia, had not had their battle lust diminished since they made their unholy pact with the Warp, and they thundered through the lands they had trod eons before with the kind of savage wrath only the immortal could muster. They came in a great wave out of the ancient peaks where the sky titans once lived that were higher by far even than those of the Mourne, leaving a great trail of hacked corpses behind them.
Many tribes of ogres attempted to fight them, but even for the mighty Tyrants of their race, taking on even the weakest of the dragon ogres that strode through the mountains was equivalent to a kitten attacking an adult bull. As crackling stormclouds crept over the whole of the mountain range, many fearsome tribes found themselves butchered like livestock, their guts staining the jagged peaks.
The smarter Tyrants chose not to try to oppose the apocalytic heralds, and instead heeded a different call than that of battle: unity.
Recognizing that the mountains now posed too much threat to fulfil his ultimate ambitions, Overtyrant Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese sent out a call to any tribes willing to listen. His messengers darted through the mountains on his best Mournfangs, and though one in two never made it to their destinations, the word spread regardless: Come to the Overtyrant's territory. He has an answer.
Greasus' primary holdings just south of the dread mountains still vomiting dragon ogres out into the world soon became positively crammed with ogres, hundreds of tribes all packed into one segment of land. Cannibalism was rife in these conditions, not that Greasus cared; the Lazarghs would approve. Instead he spent most of his time meeting with each and every Tyrant that came his way. Many of these ogres were ones he counted as his subordinates, but times were changing and the tenuous loyalty of tyrants was not something that could be relied on anymore. He took each Tyrant aside one by one and beat them to a bloody pulp before he had his most trusted gnoblars brand their faces with the Goldtooth tribe symbol. They would no longer be tyrants of their tribes, but his Goldfingers, answerable to him and him alone. And they would obey him. He feasted on many of them before they realized their proper place.
It was into this unstable situation that the Skaven inserted themselves. The ogres would not remain here for much longer, else they would attract the attention of the dragon ogres. The Overtyrant had gathered the tribes for a reason, and his actions only confirmed the obvious: the ogre kingdoms were going to war. The Fire Mouth was vomiting red magma into the sky, and the Firebellies that lived on that particular peak exhorted that it was an omen from their god. The world would bleed from the bite the ogres took out of it - the only question was where.
When the tribe of the Tyrant named Shrewd Fulg travelled to Greasus' haven, the wizened old ogre ventured to meet the Overtyrant before even being 'invited', and he brought with him some unusual guests.
-----
Slikk Oilfur wrinkled his nose as he followed their ogre contact to the treasure mound of the Overtyrant. Even the breeding pits didn't smell this rank, and the floors there were more shit than stone. Everywhere were the signs of degredation and primitiveness he'd seen on his previous assignment to these brutes, only amplified. How many of them were staying in these few valleys? A million? More? However many of them there were, they couldn't possibly stay long. He'd have to make his argument quickly.
He was forced to suspend his thought train as Fulg was abruptly stopped by a pair of hulking ogres who'd had their teeth replaced with crude gold replicas. "Stop, oldie," one of them spoke thickly. "What you doing taking yer meals to the Overtyrant's place? If it's a gift, it's too small."
Slikk bristled. The Under-Empire was magnamious enough to send envoys to these brutes and they were mistaken for food instead of being treated with respect? "We are the least thing-thing from a meal, fool-fool," he barked. "I say you stop-stop the threats and let us pass-pass to your Overtyrant." By the Horned Rat, their language was so simplistic it was difficult to express simple concepts.
The gold-toothed ogre chuckled at Slikk's words. "Heh, a talking ratty. Never seen one of those before. Wonder what you taste like," he rumbled as he reached out a meaty hand towards the skaven diplomat. Slikk had lost his patience by now, and clicked his tongue twice. This signalled the two Collections Officers who had until then been standing behind him, one of whom caught the offending ogre's limb in a specially spiked thing-catcher while the other unlimbered his ratling gun and shredded its thick skull with a hail of warp-tinged bullets. The other ogre, in the midst of pulling back an arm to punch something, froze when that steaming barrel tracked over to him. "Like-like I said," continued Slikk in a calm voice, "I wish-wish to speak to your Overtyrant, not you."
The ogre with the gold teeth blinked rapidly, eyes darting to his comrade's shredded corpse to Slikk and back again. "Yeah, suppose that's all right," he mumbled, and stood aside to let them pass. The skaven party quickly made their way towards the Overtyrant's residence, only one member of it pausing for a moment by the erstwhile guard to heft his comrade's corpse up onto their shoulder.
Throt the Unclean grinned nastily at the ogre even as he began chewing on the body.
-----
Greasus Goldtooth yawned as he absentmindedly dug around in a flab fold for spare morsels. "Fulg, I'm told you killed one of my Goldteeth. Are you here to challenge me? I'd win." He peered over his own belly at the wily old ogre, who was kneeling at the bottom of his treasure pile next to ... ah, those were skaven. This visit clearly promised more than the usual extraction of pain and loyalty.
"No, Overtyrant. I am too old, and the position wouldn't suit me," Fulg replied. "I brought you guests from my 'helpers'. They want to talk, and maybe if what they say is good then I could get a little extra status from you?"
Greasus quirked the roll of fat that substituted for his eyebrow. "Explain."
"I heard that you're making Tyrants into Goldfingers. S'alright with me, but if me friends tell you good things, maybe I could be a step above those? Goldhand or whatever."
Greasus chuckled at the old ogre's daring. "You're gonna get eaten if they waste my time, you know that." Fulg nodded. "Well, have at it, skaven. What are you here for?"
With that, the Overtyrant reclined on his throne, watching in mild amusement as one of the skaven stepped forth - not the hulking, three-armed figure at the back with the glowing green eye, but the smallest one amongst them - a small skaven with dark brown fur that seemed to be stained black with oil of some kind. It had always seemed odd to him that the most physically capable of the rat folk always seemed to not be in leadership positions.
"Overtyrant Overtyrant Tradelord Greasus Tribestealer Drakecrush Gatecrasher Hoardmaster Goldtooth the Shockingly Obese," the skaven began, evidently having had practice in naming ogre names if the way he hadn't run out of breath was any indication, "I am Slikk Oilfur, here-here on behalf of the Warpfang Bank and the great Under-Empire. I bring-bring greetings from my master, the Underlord." Here he paused to take a breath, and Greasus interjected.
"What do you want."
Slikk looked up in confusion. "Eh?"
"You're here because you want something, or your boss does. What is it?"
Slikk's face screwed up in thought. "What I want-want, Overtyrant, will depend partly on what you want-want. Perhaps we can talk-talk in greater detail tomorrow? We walked far to get-get here and I am too tired to talk ... properly."
Greasus nodded, his mind already on other things. "Very well. Stay with Fulg for now, and come see me on the morrow." Slikk nodded and backed away, keeping his head high and belly exposed - he'd noticed other ogres performing similar gestures to those they trusted. One he had adequately rested, he'd be able to properly exchange discourse with Greasus, who was clearly a step or two above the average example of his kind.
-----
Slikk ended up spending the next several days among Fulg's tribe, due to a sudden influx of tribes taking up all of the Overtyrant's attention. He spent this time watching how Fulg ruled over his tribe, exercising fear and intimidation to cow the younger bulls of his tribe into submission. In this regard, he reflected, they weren't all that different from some skaven. When he was finally granted admittance to Greasus' presence again, he was ready.
The two of them talked for several hours, Slikk dancing around the Overtyrant in wordplay, but often found himself deflected by Greasus' bluntness, which the ogre applied strategically and smoothly. He almost seemed amused by Slikk's efforts, likely due to the decided lack of intelligent conversation amongst his own race. Eventually, however, Slikk grew tired of the ogre overlord's placidity and abandoned any form of tact, simply asking, "What-what purpose have you gathered all these tribes here-here for?"
Greasus looked up from his eighteenth meal that day, his many chins liberally coated in whatever it was he was eating. "Simple t'see, innit?" He grunted. "The mountains ain't safe anymore. Dragon ogres are galumphing through 'em squashing anything they see, that's no way for an ogre to live. I'm taking 'em south soon, find some better lands ta really set up a kingdom. S'been too long since I got a new Big Name."
Slikk's thoughts raced. If he was going south, presumably out of the Mountains of Mourn, and not to the Dragon Isles, then that left only one destination.
"Y-you-you mean to take-take the Dark Lands?" he stammered out.
Greasus grinned, and Slikk was suddenly very aware of how big his teeth were, and how they shined with the juices of the flesh he was chewing. "Haven't heard nothing out of there since you rats took a bunch of tribes there a while ago. Figure I might go have a look-see."
Slikk bid his farewell quickly after that and went back to his accomodations in Fulg's camp.
-----
Slikk did not return to Greasus for several more days, and by that time his 'city' was full to bursting. The remnants of the Maneater tribe had arrived, trailing a whole slew of smaller tribes along with them, and everywhere one looked there were fights starting between the ogres. The Overtyrant was still willing to see Slikk, but it was clear that the time was rapidly approaching for the ogres to march. He wasted no time, straightforwardly suggesting to Greasus that he not lead his followers to the Dark Lands.
"And why should I listen to you?" Greasus retorted. "Seems to me your bosses were awful eager to get us ogres there just a while ago."
"True-true," conceded Slikk, "But we skaven have-have different interests than you do." His mind flashed briefly back to the things he had been told before setting out on the trek that had brought him here. "The Dark Lands have metals and jewels and-and warpstone and-and other things, but not food, and make-making your kingdom there will not be an easy thing. Instead, turn-turn your eyes to a place that benefits both-both our peoples: Cathay."
"Cathay..." Greasus mused.
Slikk proceeded to wax positively poetic on the eastern nation to the Overtyrant, describing its great green fertile fields and submissive populace who would surely bow easily to ogre slavery. He made mention of the fact that the Under-Empire was itself in the process of destabilizing Cathay, making them an open target, and most importantly he recounted the obscure legend in Cathay that long ago the Dragon Emperor had banished a race of cannibalistic giants from the western reaches of his lands by summoning fire from the sky. If those beings had been ogres, Slikk argued, then Cathay could arguably be said to be the closest thing to an ogre homeland that existed without settling in the Great Maw itself.
"Don't you want-want to reclaim your homeland, to build-build a kingdom of your own?" He asked.
His honeyed words eventually had an effect, and an avaricious gleam entered Greasus' eye. He bade Slikk come back the following day, as he had things to consider. Slikk departed struggling to conceal his grin.
The following day, Greasus proposed a deal to Slikk. "I'm up for going east, ratling, there's just one thing in my way. You've seen the ruckus that upstart Golgfag Two's been causing?"
Slikk nodded - the stand-in Tyrant of the Maneaters was the primary belligerent against Greasus' rule at the moment, and was behind a lot of the disorder in the gathering.
"Good, I need him dead. I could do it myself, but he's thin and scared of me, so it'd take too long. Use those guns o' yers and blow his guts out. Then ye'll have your ... alliance."
Slikk agreed without hesitation, trying to ignore how ... hungry Greasus had seemed when trying out that new word. He almost sounded like Throt did. Speaking of which...
-----
The gathered crowd of ogres shook the ground with their collective hooting and cheering as the two bulky figures frantically grappled with each other. Whatever this rat thingy was, it sure put up a good fight!
Golgfag II's eyes bulged and his face turned red as he struggled to breathe. This rat thingy had charged him out of nowhere and clamped some sort of collar on a stick around his neck, and seemed to be enjoying the process of slowly throttling the air out of him while grappling him with his two other arms. Why couldn't he have three arms? It wasn't fair!
He screamed incoherently as he managed to break the ratty's grip on his arms and pulled the thing in for a crunching headbutt to the face. He regretted this instantly, as something on the ratty's face splintered onto him and got in his eyes and ow it huuurt he couldn't see! He wailed as he pawed at his face with one hand while blindly swinging around with the other.
This didn't protect him from Throt's expert skill with a thing-catcher, who janked it upwards to expose the ogre's throat and dove for it with feral speed, swallowing half of it with a single bite. They toppled over onto the ground, the famished Fleshmaster swiftly gulping down the ogre's corpse with a speed rivaling most ogre butchers. Eventually he rose, positively covered with ogre blood, which he licked clean around his muzzle. "Who-who was with him?" He asked to the crowded spectators.
Some of the duller and more easily cowed of Golgfag's tribe raised their hands mutely.
"You're with me now-now unless you want to be eaten. Let's go-go."
With that, Throt the Unclean left the stripped carcass of his latest kill and began sedately walking back to the tribe of Fulg, new retinue on his heels.
-----
On the eve of armageddon, Greasus Goldtooth turned his gaze towards Cathay, and the majority of his species marched with him. This, he proclaimed, would not only honor the Great Maw with a pilgrimage of unprecedented size, but lead to the taking back of the homeland his people had lost so long ago. A true Ogre Kingdom.
Greasus Goldtooth has turned his considerable forces towards Cathay, with the aim of establishing a proper kingdom once there! Due to the amount of ogres under his banner and the need to fly under the radar of the dragon ogres, they will arrive next turn.
In recognition of his success in bending the Overtyrant to skaven whims, Slikk Oilfur has been promoted to Head Spokesrat of the Warpfang Bank! See Heroes threadmark.
Throt the Unclean has aquired a small but sizeable fraction of an ogre tribe after killing and eating its Tyrant! See Heroes threadmark.
----------
Long ago, a great queen was poisoned on the eve of her greatest triumph. Shot with a poison dart, she lay dying and saw all her children weep, for they knew their works were lost with her.
-----
The Under-Empire had many tools with which to slay its enemies. When outright obliteration was required, it called upon the machines of Skyre. When it required an agent to fit any situation, it sent for the Fleshmasters of Moulder. When it needed a populace to suffer for days, months even, in unceasing agony as their bodies wasted away, the priests of Pestilens were called upon. But when the Council of Thirteen wanted someone dead, they turned to Eshin.
When they wanted to make especially sure, they sent Deathmaster Snikch.
At the behest of the Underlord himself, Snikch ghosted into the land the man-things called Estalia, with lesser assassins following in his wake simply to conceal the trail of death he left behind him.
He spent many weeks killing his way through all aspects of Estalian life - everyone from minor nobles to poor farmers and everyone in between was targeted if there was even the slightest suspicion of the mystery woman having been sighted with them. Often his victims died in the most improbable ways, impaled atop of cathedrals with their skin peeled off or in basements fifty miles from where they lived, their organs perforated with a thousand wounds without a mark on their skin. Regardless of who they were, no one escaped the Deathmaster, and eventually through a combination of instinct, sheer bodycount, and espionage experience Snikch found a gossamer-thin trail of evidence leading him to his target.
-----
The queen could not stop her own death, but saddened by the suffering her children were sure to undergo with her gone, resolved to leave at least a chance for peace behind her. She bade all her healers away, disregarding their protests, and vanished into her chambers for many days.
-----
From her ship (which was nowhere to be found) she had vanished into the fabric of Estalian society, interweaving into it with the ease of a native. To farmers and peasants she spoke words that they would not divulge even under the knives of the Deathmaster, she spoke to traders and merchants as she crossed their paths and gave them many letters in strange ciphers. She spoke with soldiers and obtained a weapon from them, a simple steel spear, before vanishing even from Snikch's investigations for many days. She turned up next in the small town of Reas in the central mountains, notable only for the temple at its center.
-----
When the queen emerged, she carried two treasures with her: the Mystery of Might, and the Mystery of Wisdom. She gathered all her children all around her to gaze upon them, for they held their salvation.
-----
The temple was a tall, plain square building with sound and sturdy architecture found in some buildings from long ago. Ringed with many gardens and walkways filled primarily with a particular kind of mint, it was home to an order of warrior priests that guarded Reas and many of the surrounding villages, and kept watch over two treasured artifacts that had been seized at great cost from Tilea many years ago.
The town was humble, but more important than its size indicated - it was tradition for the lords and ladies of Estalia to meet here every decade or so to reflect on the legacy of their forebears. That time was very near when the woman made an appearance in Reas, and Snikch danced silently through the shadows after his quarry.
-----
Whosoever could answer the Mystery of Might would be strong enough to hold her lands together. Whosoever could solve the Mystery of Wisdom could truly be called wise enough to unite the queen's people under them.
-----
It was daylight when the Deathmaster made it to the temple - not what he would've preferred, but it would have to do lest the woman slip away again. Slipping from shadow to shadow, he clambered up the furrowed pillars around the exterior in an eyeblink and was inside, where none could see him. He wrinkled his nose at the odd scent of the herbs outside. It was familiar somehow, but not in any way he could define. Silently he slunk towards the center of the temple, where in his ears and behind his eyes he could hear the sounds of weapons clashing loud and clearly.
Melting into existence in a well-concealed nook high up near the roof, Snikch was mildly surprised at what he saw. There was the woman he had been seeking, tall, ravenhaired, strong of face and lithe of body, holding her spear. It appeared the manthings wanted her dead as much as he did, for she was being accosted by a red-faced male manthing, who held a thin rapier and thrust it at her from every which way, only to be blocked or deflected with near-contemptuous ease by the woman. It was no contest to the Deathmaster's eyes, and soon the woman proved it, folding the man over a knee to his stomach and knocking his sword from his hand.
As the red-faced manthing slipped to the floor in defeat where many of his fellows lay, the woman looked around at all the other foppishly dressed manthings that were present in the chamber, bearing witness to her duel. "Well?" She called out in a clarion voice. "Is there any other willing to challenge my claim to speak? Or does your pigheaded arrogance urge you yet further?"
One of the gathered manthings had its ego pierced by her words, and rushed forward yelling, clumsily drawing its sword. With a fluidity of motion that almost matched some of his subordinates, the woman hit its instep with the butt of her spear, drove her knee into its groin, and shattered its nose with her forehead before placing the tip of her spear at its now-open throat. "Peace, peace," the manthing said, struggling to speak around the blood welling up from its nose. It backed up when the woman allowed it to.
"Fools," the woman cried. "Swollen, pompous fools the lot of you, to have fallen this far into disunity that sites like these are the only semblance of brotherhood you once had. You struggle against one another for petty titles and honors while the world burns down around your ears, and you wonder why you are considered irrelevant? None of you even know why you are here, do you?"
A voice called out from the crowd. "It's tradi-"
"Yes I know it's tradition," the woman snapped. "But none of you remember why it began, why you all came here in the first place. Or have you forgotten those entirely?" She said, whirling around to point definitively at the centerpoint of the temple, where two plinths stood with an object on each.
-----
Many of the queen's children attempted to solve the twin puzzles, but none were strong or wise enough to answer them. Soon enough the queen's time came and she perished in body, and her children fought over the puzzles to such an extent that none could remember which was which anymore.
-----
One was a plain cube of grey metal the size of a large fist, with no markings on it save for a very few faint scratches on the top. The other was a gargantuan knot of rope, that wove and wound around itself in such a dizzying pattern that it was impossible to follow its path. They stood with a faint sense of gravity around them, as if even contemplating them was a serious action.
"The Twin Treasures?" Scoffed one of the many manthings. "No one's tried them in a hundred years, there's no point. No way to solve them."
"No point?" Retorted the woman. "Do you not recall that whosoever solves the riddle of both will then be able to reclaim the empire our people once held? Do none of you think highly enough of yourselves to be willing to grasp that mantle?" She shrugged at the resulting silence. "Fine, I'll do it then," she said, and walked towards the artifacts.
There was outcry from the gathered lords or whatever they were, which was shouted down by the strangely garbed priest-things, who explained that it was sacred right to test the blah blah blah. Snikch was not listening, instead watching the woman. Shadows were splayed out all across the room from the pillars, but none reached close enough to her to make an attempt. Besides, there was something about the gravity of this moment that he was reluctant to disturb.
The woman stopped beside the metal cube and held it aloft. "Tell me, you who are so knowledgable of your history, which is this?"
A reply came after a short period of uncertainty. "The Treasure of Might, that is. Been hit with everything from Estalian swords to dwarf axes, ain't no way to open it."
The woman twisted the cube in her hands and the top spun off, revealing it to be a box. "You were saying?" She quipped to the resultant silence. She reached within and withdrew what appeared to be an ornate key. "This is the treasure of might, true," she said, "Might of the mind. When you dare to apply the power of your thought where everyone else bashes away fruitlessly, you will unlock success."
She proceeded over to the ball of rope. "And this is the Treasure of Wisdom, I presume? The most learned scholars have studied it for days and could not discern where it starts or ends? Entire mathematical theorums have been derived from its patterns? Am I in the general area?"
The ring of manthings mutely nodded.
"Then you already know the lesson I'm about to teach you," the woman said, picking up a discarded sword from the floor. "This represents wisdom, true. The wisdom of the body." With that said, she struck downwards with a masterful blow, cleaving the ball almost in two. She reached into the core and pulled out what appeared to be a metal sphere, engraved with odd symbols. It had a hole in one side that perfectly matched the key from the other treasure. "Training the mind is not enough if you let the body fall into disrepair," she explained. "There is wisdom in thoughtful action as well as active thought."
By this time, the shadows cast by the pillars of the temple had shifted slightly, and as Snikch watched, they moved ever so slowly, bringing one particular one closer and closer to the woman. In just a few moments he'd be able to ... there.
As the Deathmaster narrowed his focus on his target, the woman put the key in the hole of the sphere. "And now I'll take up the role one of you or your bretheren should have mustered the balls to shoulder long ago," she said with an air of finality.
The shadow touched her back heel. Snikch blurred-
And the woman turned the key.
-----
Still the puzzles exist in the queen's lands, and the legend remains: whosoever is mighty and wise enough to solve them both is truly worthy of being the heir of Myrmidia.
-----
The symbols on the sphere lit up and exploded a wave of cleansing white light that banished the shadow Snikch shifted to just as he stepped into it, blinding him temporarily before clearing away all the other shadows in the room. The woman looked over her shoulder at the Deathmaster, and her expression was not surprised. "And now it comes full circle," she quipped, and thrust her spear at his prone form with blinding speed.
But even blinded and dazed from magical backlash, Deathmaster Snikch was still the foremost death-dealer in all of Clan Eshin. He flipped back from the spear without needing to see it, and lunged at his target, scraps of shadow blurring around his form. The woman stepped aside instead of meeting his wild leap and hit him right in the kidneys with her spear butt, sending him sprawling towards the circle of other manthings, who had all drawn their swords at his sighting. Snikch blearily blinked his eyes open, only to find himself surrounded by some of the finest duelists in all Estalia, ready to skewer him.
They hesitated half a heartbeat, and that was enough. The Deathmaster leapfrogged over one of them, killing three men on his way up, and kicked off his unfortunate climbing post, killing him with the knives in his toes before slicing his way through fifteen more with warpstar and rat-claw. Bones broke under his touch, arteries were ripped whole out of the skin, and one unfortunate had his guts pulled out and used as an impromptu whip/strangulation device on four others.
The spear rocketed through the chest of a dead man and nearly impaled Snikch through the sternum before he jerked out of the way. Acting on instinct, he flipped over to one side just in time to avoid a sword cutting through the air he once occupied. He spared a glance at his target, staring at him imperiously with blade in hand, to throw a barrage of warp-stars at her, all of which she deflected or dodged before fairly leaping once more towards him, spear somehow again in hand. He decided at the sight that caution was the better part of valor - manthings had to sleep at some point, after all, he'd just gank her then - and ran for it. He could certainly defeat her, he knew, but it would leave him open to the vengance-hungry swords of the Estalian nobility and he wanted to escape with his head intact.
Snikch rushed out of the temple with agility unnatural even amongst the skaven and vaulted his way into the gardens. Yes, he'd escape, leave the body of one of his underlings somewhere nearby to give the manthings a sense of false security, then come back that night and eliminate her, that's what he'd do! His plans were cut short, however, by a fearsome tone of yowling that hit his most primal instincts.
Cats were present in the gardens in enormous amounts, everywhere he looked, on top of flagstones, lounging by pools, prowling through the plant that was omnipresent and that Snikch recognized the smell of now. Catmint, it was catmint! The cats were all watching him, pupils narrowed, ears pulled back to their skulls, fur puffed up, and by the God Below there were so many of them. It took Snikch a few seconds to shake off his discomfit at so many felines, and then he leapt forward. They were only cats, after all, and he was the deadliest assassin in the world. What had he to fear from cats?
The cats, evidently, had nothing to fear from him, throwing themselves at him with earsplitting yowls. The Deathmaster cut through four, five of them with each blow, but that still made enough of them that he couldn't focus on much else for fear of them getting to his eyes with their pricking claws.
The steel spear slammed home at the base of his spine, and Snikch felt his breath involuntarily rush into his body as his nerves went dead below his waist. He toppled face-first into the dirt, struggling to breathe over the shock, something not helped by the blazing pain as the spear was ripped out of his lower back. Dirt, irritating and cloying, got into his nose and he spent a good few seconds coughing them up when he was kicked over to his back, not daring to move for fear of the spear at his throat. He stared bleary-eyed up at the goddess that held it.
"You think I didn't expect this?" Myrmidia challenged him in fluent Queekish. "After your kind murdered me last time, with nearly the exact same method, you thought I wouldn't make preparations against the same thing happening again?" Her eyes flashed angrily as the clang and clash of armor grew closer. "You creatures are just like them, only worse. So caught up in your petty rivalries and self-preservation that you can't grasp the bigger picture."
"So educate me, oh wise-wise whore," Snikch spat. "What is in the big-big picture only you can see?"
She laughed cruelly. "No. I have other fates in mind for you."
The conflict in Cathay is not intense enough to engage in the upcoming turn. Ironically, this is fortunate for us. I say have Eshin sabotage the anti-plague efforts, and maybe some other things.
I imagine that Myrmidia intends to use Snikch as proof of the Skaven menace and unite Estalia...we may no longer have the benefits of being hidden. Depending on what we learn, I would say upgrade Eshin with the concurrent research utilizing the appropriate stuff from Nippon, and send the Nightlord after her/Snikch with at least 3 Authority...it may be best to initiate an invasion as well. Estalia's unification will not be stupidly sped up, but we need every opportunity we can get. Plus, we probably want to attacks somewhere since Cathay isn't an option.
All in all...it's an interesting turn.
I say research and development should get most of our focus, a bit of effort to the Cathay conflict, and tentatively engage in an operation to take Estalia and Tilea.
Now, I have an idea for the Verminking question: what needs be implemented to encourage the rise of more Heroes? Essentially.
And it only took me 4 months!
...
It's the same amount of time it took for me to make turn 0. And I think I've gotten better at writing now than I was then, so it's a fair trade.
Both Ikit and the Fleshmaster stood perfectly still. They were directly next to one another but neither had so much as one of their whiskers twitch. There was no room for petty disagreements in this situation, and both of them were intensely aware that if either of them acted up it could be their last day with all their component particles connected to each other. They both breathed very carefully and kept their musk glands tightly under control as they focused all their attention on the fearsome being in front of them.
...
Thanquol waved his hand flippantly. "Those, yes-yes. You are both in this facility while other agent-servants of mine do work-work in the rest of the Dark Lands. Don't fight-squabble like last time, because my glorious personage is staying here-here as well. If you delay-muddle the work of the other, I will find out and be bothered." A thrum of power resonated from within Thanquol, invisible to the eye but palpable in both of the scientist's souls, which shrivelled a little at the contact. "Don't bother me."
With that, Thanquol turned around and walked deeper into the fortress, leaving Ikit and Stitch standing there for the next several minutes before they dared move again.
It still weirds me out to see Thanquol intimidating people and being in charge. *laughs* Then again he has the authority still and pops useless underlings just as much as any other Skaven, so...
After the initial fuss, however, Ikit made good progress. The first of the devices he examined was a design referred to by the dawi-zharr as the Whirlwind. It was simple but ingenious, being essentially a push cart with rotating scythes mounted to the front and attached to the wheels by a collection of gears. When the contraption was pushed forward, the gears turned and whirled the blades around at a good speed. It would be capable of blending through packed formations of troops if brought to a good speed, and the simplicity of its design made it perfect for inclusion into a skaven army. It was simplicity for Ikit to figure out how to replicate the thing, though he couldn't quite grasp just how the dwarfs had made it so sturdy - the copies he made, forged quickly of cheap iron, didn't hold up to more than a few good hits, and they rattled disturbingly when pushed. But they were easy to make, and that was what Ikit valued most. He cackled to himself as he meticulously recorded his designs in a code of his own making and sent it off to his laboratories in Skavenblight. Skyre stood to make many warptokens off of the newly-named Blender Cart.
Merely creating a copy of some other engineer's work, however, was not enough for Ikit's sensibilities. Any hack could recreate the work of others, but only the truly gifted could improve upon it. So he set upon himself the goal of making a motorized version of the device. Initially he had quite the headache attempting to figure out how to simplify his warpstone engines enough to be produced in the numbers needed, but after significant contemplation while watching a detachment of the Infurnal Legion keep a Bale Taurus in check, he realized he was going about it the wrong way. If it were to be a fire-and-forget weapon, it was best not to complicate it and instead let the purity of the design show. Just as the Legion skaven worked nearly in sync, it would be a collection of gears like already found on the Blender Cart that powered his autonomous version on its own. He indulged it as a side project alone, however - he had the rest of the dawi-zharr wargear to examine and what he had found already would be of great use to the lesser clans that he had so many of in his pocket. He likely wouldn't finalize it by the end of the year, but for the moment his mastery of the design was sufficient for him to leave self-spinning prototypes all over the fortress for Stitch to run into.
Instead of heading to their stations, all the apprentices began a mad scramble for the pedestal and the bazuka upon it. Eventually one broke free of the tangled fistfight that erupted once they met each other, clambering onto the pedestal and cackling as he snatched up the bazuka and aimed it at the rest of his competitors. His laughter tapered off, however, at the empty click that the weapon emitted when he pulled the trigger.
"I almost forgot to say-say," boomed the speaker at that exact minute, Ikit apparently having had extremely good timing when recording it, "That trying to kill-kill your fellow apprentices with anything other than a rocket-weapon your own paws make-make, or touching mine which I have so generously lent to help-help your own education, will result in immediate disqualification."
Then one day hellish shrieks echoed out of the black cavern, and the ground rumbled. A detachment of troops rushed down to the cave to find a horrific sight: the restraints on one of the pens had melted into scrap, and the Great Taurus that had been kept within had surged out like a volcanic eruption. Even as they watched, it savaged the prone body of Fleshmaster Stitch, who wriggled and shrieked as the burning claws and tusks of the beast dug into his flesh.
Of course they didn't rush in to attempt to save the Fleshmaster; they weren't about to risk their snouts against a bloody Taurus of all things. They unanimously decided to leave one of their number to watch, which they accomplished by nailing the unlucky skaven's footpaw to the floor, and to go and take their time in retrieving reinforcements. Thus it was that only the unlucky clanrat was present to watch the Fleshmaster chew his way into the chest of the Taurus and devour its heart, and the only one to hear his command of 'keep the body' before he passed into unconsciousness.
Despite his hopes for the possibility of the creature aiding his research, it refused after it had learned their language, which it spoke in a thick, grating voice. "I shall speak only with one who is worthy of mine self," it said repeatedly. "Bring one such to me, if your kind is not wholly feeble like thyself." It refused to say anything else to him. Angry, but unwilling to harm such a delicious specimen, Stitch was forced to adjourn his studies of the Lammasu for the time being.
He aquiesced, and the Wise One proved an eager and able student of the art. While normally the necessary intake of the energies of the flame in the earth into one's flesh required the caster to be exceptionally tough to get any notable results out of it, the Master of Magic proved able to overcome this limitation via sheer arcane power.
At the building site, located just beside the crater to retain the ease of access to the various mines and factories located on the Glass Plateau, Goldfang met with his fellow member of the Council of Thirteen, Morbag One-Eye, as well as the second-in-command of the USA, Sleek Sharpwit. Being work-oriented skaven, they coordinated and met up with a minimum of posturing and threats, and began jointly planning what they all considered to be the next great hub of skavenkind.
Seeing an opportunity, Skrisnik proposed a system where the enclave would offer treatment of various ailments for a price, after which the unwitting client would become mired in a payment scheme, making both clans money.
Thugclaw and the Squeakless Snouts set up shop in the former base of the ork Waaagh!!! that had ravaged the dawi-zharr, Mount Grimfang, clearing it out thoroughly with stolen warpfire throwers.
Plaguelord Nurglitch, keenly aware of his lack of influence with the Warpfang Bank compared to some on the Council, took what he could get. He and his clan settled in the Daemon's Stump, and began the process of converting it into a suitable plague cathedral. The initiatives of Horripila and the Army were inspected closely to see if they went against the creed of the Horned Rat. After much deliberation, the hygiene program was allowed to be implemented in a small amount of isolated laboratories within the fortress so as to better isolate individual strains of plague. A limited amount of Horripila staff was to stay in the fortress pursuant to this, staying in separate quarters to avoid conflicts over their respective ethical codes. The warp rift in its isolated containment was not tampered with at all, but Nurglitch often ventured down to the outer layer to contemplate what could be done with such a phenomenon.
Though a large amount of its resources were spent on aiding their clan leader's journey to the west, Rictus managed to wrangle some of the Warpfang's funds away to comply with Horripila's renovations and send several expeditions into the Plain of Bones, which they had long eyed suspiciously but now looked at with greedy gazes for the treasure trove of materials that would aid them in their cryptic research. None were ever heard from after they entered the dark-magic saturated plain, and Rictus wrote it off in frustration until the Bonelord returned from his excursion.
FInally, just as the efforts to shape the Dark Lands into a new stronghold for skaven habitation drew to a close, something was discovered that justified Skrisnik Goldfang's until-then unexplained instinct to build Glassvault next to the still-smoking site where Zharr-Naggrund used to be. During a routine operation, a lucky (or unlucky, seeing as he was immediately murdered for it) indentured clanrat struck a small deposit of warpstone. After much examination to ascertain where it had come from, it was eventually discovered by the Grey Seers residing in Glassforge that the immense amount of magical energies released in the detonation that had destroyed Zharr-Naggrund had not dissipated afterwards; instead they had stayed in the crater the city had left behind, and begun to curdle and sink into the ground. According to the estimates of the Grey Seers, in as little as three years the entire miles-wide expanse would be comprised of warpstone, by far the largest deposit ever found. The Arch-Economist laughed so hard he ruptured his stomach when he heard.
@Xantalos Can I ask you to make it more obvious what the changes are between turns if you're editing an existing Threadmark and leaving it vague like this? It's hard to remember all the details from the past turn so as to compare. (I haven't yet looked, just asking in general, you might have already done this.)
In mountains across the world, all was chaos as legions of dragon ogres, awoken by unnaturally gigantic lightning storms, rampaged across their ancient domains anew in accordance of their pact with the Chaos Gods. They who had seen the beginning of the world would help usher in the end. In the World's Edge mountains there roamed Kholek Sun-Eater, who's face was forever obscured behind darkness. Worse monsters than he rose in the Mountains of Mourne, and the world shook at their footsteps.
"Damnable vermin!" Grolknar Shockfang bellowed as he swung his mace about in frustration. "Come out and die against your betters!" Roaring angrily, he charged forward, after the group of ratmen that had fallen back before his unstoppable advance. They had just fled around that rock formation close by, and he would catch up to them and tear them limb from limb! In a flash he thundered around the corner not to behold his prey, but a large pile of opaque glass balls. "What trickery is this," he rumbled, and plucked one of them up between his fingertips.
She had a different plan in mind, of course. In the mountains to either side, she'd dispatched demolitions teams to hollow away the steep rocky formations. When the enemy was fully committed, the signal would be given to collapse the tunnels and send twin massive rockslides down into the valley, crushing all the combatants then and there. The entirety of what could be called leadership of the dragon ogres would be eliminated with nothing more than a smattering of replaceable meat as collateral.
That was, of course, assuming everything went according to plan, which things so rarely did. If her officers failed and the chattle began to rout, there would be nothing to hold the attention of the dragon ogres to the trapped valley, and they would likely continue on their current path to Foul Peak. But she had the Grey Seers for that eventuality. She mostly avoided the camp of the priests, who had lit up the night with the green glow of their ritual circles they'd been preparing for quite some time now, but she knew well the power of the backup plan they could enact. Everything would be fine. Even should the worst happen and the Seer's countermeasure fail, she had the elite of her forces held in reserve - their weapons would surely be enough to eliminate the leadership of this group.
The weapons the daemons carried were not swords as she had initially assumed, for they did not rush to engage the dragon ogre host in melee, though it had been temporarily pinned by the resurgent remains of her bait forces. Instead they resembled long halberds with tangles of wire spiralling around the shaft and into the flesh of their wielders, that glowed an eerie green around the blade. Zooming in closer, she could see what looked like targeting focii clustered around what was now clearly a focus of some kind, and multiple other metallic spikes seemingly bolted into the flesh of the Verminlords. They had bulky packs on their backs, almost resembling fuel canisters. The design reminded her of something, but she couldn't recall what. Regardless, the daemons seemed content to stay at a distance rather than clash with the enemy.
They spent several days digging through the rubble, occasionally coming across a dragon ogre. Some of the weaker ones had died from accumulated wounds inflicted by the bait horde combined with the rockslide, but most were still alive, if severely weakened, no doubt due to the massive dose of electricity the Verminlords had given them.
The matter became moot as the Verminlord's form suddenly flickered, its outline flowing and warping like a candleflame. It screeched something, but whatever it intended to say was distorted into a high-pitched squeal as the whole essence of the daemon distorted and morphed into one smooth stream of etheric energy that flowed into an indistinct figure behind it. As the skaven drank in the essence of the daemon, it began glowing a brilliant electric green, casting sillhouettes of itself all over the surroundings. When she spotted the long horns atop its head, Paskrit grinned. It was about time the Seerlord put himself to work.
The dragon ogre chuckled, its voice deep and resonant, crackling and crumbling. "More vermin," it spoke in a voice tinged with lightning. "Good. Rat taste is never tiring. More is good." It hefted its axe and continued to approach Kritislik's glowing figure at a slow, measured pace. The Seerlord replied quietly, and Paskrit had to strain to hear his reply, but his words carried themselves unnaturally far.
"As you wish, scalehorsething."
Rats began to boil up from the ground at his words, sleek bodies oozing up from crevices in the rock too small to hold anything, multiplying from any shadow in the vicinity, slipping out of the very air with bright, hungry eyes. A carpet of rodentflesh rose from the world, silently rushing towards the shaggoth. Within seconds they had materialized in such numbers as to reach the ankles of the ancient dragon ogre, and the sound of chewing echoed up from where he stood in the flood of rats. It bellowed, more in shock than pain, and began to stomp down at the endless tide of rodents. Many were crushed beneath its hooves, but for each crushed there seemed to be a hundred slipping out of the crevices between the other rodents. They were climbing the shaggoth's legs now, an oozing pool of fur slowly crawling up its scaled flesh. Blood began to spurt up from where thousands of pairs of teeth tore their way into immortal flesh, and the shaggoth howled in agony. It smote the vermin with enough electrical power to set an entire forest aflame, but they smothered it with their bodies. They were voracious, chewing their way into its flesh through weak spots in the creases of its legs, devouring all they touched. Soon the shaggoth could not stand anymore for lack of feet, and fell into the seething tide of vermin. The thrashing stopped eventually, and when the seemingly endless sea of rats retreated back into the crevices and shadows of the world, there were only a few drops of blood left to mark the death of the ancient monster.
In times past the Vitae river had nourished the entirety of Nekehara, growing its crops and providing water for the people. Now it carried death through the land as the Mortis, its waters toxic to the point that they stripped skin off of muscle. The crews of most ships would refuse to even enter its waters, no matter what treasures might lie in the land of the dead.
It was fortunate in that sense that the crew of the ship currently sailing up the Mortis did not have lives to preserve.
It was utterly silent as it drifted upriver, its sails half-filled by a wind that did not exist outside of the confines of the vessel. Its crew made no noise as they operated it, did not visibly communicate or interact with each other as they ensured the ship stayed on course. The fact that they were not even alive, but skeletons animated by some sort of magic only added to the eerie atmosphere of the ship, which was in ill repair - its timbres were rotting, sails mouldy and slack, and the deck was perpetually slimy no matter how vigirously the skeletons scrubbed. Even combined with the perpetual chill, it still suited the captain just fine.
"Tell-tell me again what it is we are looking for?" Asked Skretch Half-Dead. He sneezed, shaking his head to attempt to dislodge his perpetually clogged sinuses. He scratched at his dull brown fur, which always seemed to be damp, as he looked askance at the only other living skaven on the ship, though living seemed to be pushing it.
Infiltration attempts in Nekehara were hindered by the hostility of the environment and the impossibility of blending in with the natives. A few scattered enclaves were overlooked for now, however. Nekehara's infiltration rating has not been increased, but instead changed to None*, which will occasionally provide very general information on an irregular basis.
Tretch Craventail has had a (yet another) harrowing experience and survived unscathed once more! See Heroes threadmark.
Bonelord Kratch Doomclaw's powers of necromancy have grown considerably from his investigation of the Black Pyramid! See Heroes threadmark.
I am 100% okay with this. Totally worth the Authority. We got a boost to two Heroes and we now know IC the existence of the Black Pyramid, so we can IC hammer it and fuck Nagash early. That is a big thing that I was pushing for and I'm happy with it.
And one confident fool, wanting to ensure victory against his ancestral foe and imprint his name with glory for all time, dared to disturb a beast far greater than even that which he wished to slay. The Shattā-on were known to most of Nippon as no more than a fairy tale, a race of rats made of darkness formed from the sin in the hearts of men, who had long ago threatened to overthrow the land and cast eternal darkness upon the world before they had been thrown deep underground by the combined efforts of every ka. To those who delved deeper into their lore, the Chittering Shadows were a sleeping leviathan under every major city, pacified only by the willing transferrence of the arts of the Yami. They conducted trade with their aboveground neighbors through certain shady merchants, and could give one great treasures if they were so inclined. But Tokugawa Nobunaga, the most powerful warlord in Nippon, was not frightened by the fears of lesser men. He set his underlings on finding an entrance to one of their lairs, and upon locating it, walked into their den of shadows alone. Three days passed, and the shogun emerged, none the worse for wear but looking profoundly shaken. Once safely ensconced in his fortress, he ordered for several of his most skilled Supirittosheipā to travel to the underground lair of the Eshin, and contacted several witches of the wilds he had conducted deals with before. Over the course of a few weeks, several of the elusive spellcasters travelled to the lair of the Shattā-on, trailed by a great amount and variety of magical creatures from deep within the wilds. Tokugawa Nobunaga could not rest easy after what he had seen in the lair of the Chittering Shadows, but he knew that the deal he had made with them was worth it. It had to be.
"As you are destroyed and decayed, you are reborn." Skrolk gestured to his divine paste, which stank with a stench that defied natural law. "Come-come. Drink of the God and let-let Him drink of you. Let your soul be filled with sacred rot."
Seized by something she could not explain - perhaps this was what they called faith? - Helkic stumbled forward and drank of the corrupt broth. She tumbled to the ground near-immediately, writhing in pain not physical, for what had been touched was not in her body but something more intimate, more sacred than that. It was the innermost core of her being she could feel blistering and rotting, and it hurt in a way nothing else ever had or could. Through it all, Skrolk was with her, clutching her claw in his own and murmuring sweet sentiment of decay. The words were indistinct, but the message clear.
Pain is blessing. Decay renewal. Suffering sacred. Hope death. Entropy life.
When Helkic arose from her delerium thirteen days later, the world had had a film taken off it. Everything was so much clearer, the reasons for her worldy concerns so ... petty compared to what she could now intuit with ease. She was grateful beyond words to Lord Skrolk for his boon, and they spent many hours in sacred communion, exchanging and enhancing corruption between them, rotting her soul yet further as they worked on the Underlord's decree. The paste of sloth was only the beginning, which went through thirteen stages of refinement and enhancement, their keen eyes ensuring the symbology of the supernatural plague was in the correct alignment. When it was finished, it would be more than just a plague against Cathay - it would be a plague against herself, to test and experiment metaphysically just as she had catalogued her own biology so long ago.
Helkic Stain has undergone tutelage from Pope Skrolk himself, and has been enlightened by the experience! She is close to becoming a full-fledged hero unit. See Heroes threadmark.
The Wheezing Slumber has been unleashed upon centralwest Cathay! A nonlethal but extremely debilitating disease that lasts an extremely long time, if it ever goes away at all, it has reduced production in that region of the country by a significant degree.
Slikk bristled. The Under-Empire was magnamious enough to send envoys to these brutes and they were mistaken for food instead of being treated with respect? "We are the least thing-thing from a meal, fool-fool," he barked. "I say you stop-stop the threats and let us pass-pass to your Overtyrant." By the Horned Rat, their language was so simplistic it was difficult to express simple concepts.
The gold-toothed ogre chuckled at Slikk's words. "Heh, a talking ratty. Never seen one of those before. Wonder what you taste like," he rumbled as he reached out a meaty hand towards the skaven diplomat. Slikk had lost his patience by now, and clicked his tongue twice. This signalled the two Collections Officers who had until then been standing behind him, one of whom caught the offending ogre's limb in a specially spiked thing-catcher while the other unlimbered his ratling gun and shredded its thick skull with a hail of warp-tinged bullets. The other ogre, in the midst of pulling back an arm to punch something, froze when that steaming barrel tracked over to him. "Like-like I said," continued Slikk in a calm voice, "I wish-wish to speak to your Overtyrant, not you."
The ogre with the gold teeth blinked rapidly, eyes darting to his comrade's shredded corpse to Slikk and back again. "Yeah, suppose that's all right," he mumbled, and stood aside to let them pass. The skaven party quickly made their way towards the Overtyrant's residence, only one member of it pausing for a moment by the erstwhile guard to heft his comrade's corpse up onto their shoulder.
Throt the Unclean grinned nastily at the ogre even as he began chewing on the body.
Golgfag II's eyes bulged and his face turned red as he struggled to breathe. This rat thingy had charged him out of nowhere and clamped some sort of collar on a stick around his neck, and seemed to be enjoying the process of slowly throttling the air out of him while grappling him with his two other arms. Why couldn't he have three arms? It wasn't fair!
Greasus Goldtooth has turned his considerable forces towards Cathay, with the aim of establishing a proper kingdom once there! Due to the amount of ogres under his banner and the need to fly under the radar of the dragon ogres, they will arrive next turn.
In recognition of his success in bending the Overtyrant to skaven whims, Slikk Oilfur has been promoted to Head Spokesrat of the Warpfang Bank! See Heroes threadmark.
Throt the Unclean has aquired a small but sizeable fraction of an ogre tribe after killing and eating its Tyrant! See Heroes threadmark.
He spent many weeks killing his way through all aspects of Estalian life - everyone from minor nobles to poor farmers and everyone in between was targeted if there was even the slightest suspicion of the mystery woman having been sighted with them. Often his victims died in the most improbable ways, impaled atop of cathedrals with their skin peeled off or in basements fifty miles from where they lived, their organs perforated with a thousand wounds without a mark on their skin.
The woman stopped beside the metal cube and held it aloft. "Tell me, you who are so knowledgable of your history, which is this?"
A reply came after a short period of uncertainty. "The Treasure of Might, that is. Been hit with everything from Estalian swords to dwarf axes, ain't no way to open it."
The woman twisted the cube in her hands and the top spun off, revealing it to be a box. "You were saying?" She quipped to the resultant silence. She reached within and withdrew what appeared to be an ornate key. "This is the treasure of might, true," she said, "Might of the mind. When you dare to apply the power of your thought where everyone else bashes away fruitlessly, you will unlock success."
She proceeded over to the ball of rope. "And this is the Treasure of Wisdom, I presume? The most learned scholars have studied it for days and could not discern where it starts or ends? Entire mathematical theorums have been derived from its patterns? Am I in the general area?"
The ring of manthings mutely nodded.
"Then you already know the lesson I'm about to teach you," the woman said, picking up a discarded sword from the floor. "This represents wisdom, true. The wisdom of the body." With that said, she struck downwards with a masterful blow, cleaving the ball almost in two. She reached into the core and pulled out what appeared to be a metal sphere, engraved with odd symbols. It had a hole in one side that perfectly matched the key from the other treasure. "Training the mind is not enough if you let the body fall into disrepair," she explained. "There is wisdom in thoughtful action as well as active thought."
"You think I didn't expect this?" Myrmidia challenged him in fluent Queekish. "After your kind murdered me last time, with nearly the exact same method, you thought I wouldn't make preparations against the same thing happening again?" Her eyes flashed angrily as the clang and clash of armor grew closer. "You creatures are just like them, only worse. So caught up in your petty rivalries and self-preservation that you can't grasp the bigger picture."
"So educate me, oh wise-wise whore," Snikch spat. "What is in the big-big picture only you can see?"
She laughed cruelly. "No. I have other fates in mind for you."
Honestly, the Estalian thing is the only true failure. Besides that we've done rather well.
And we'll need a potential target with Cathay not an option, so in some ways the possible prompt from Myrmidia depending on her actions will be a blessing.
And I see we did well to prioritize firmness and life over deadliness for the disease, what with how much trouble the Cathayans are having despite specifically organized and rapidly deployed teams meant to combat it.
Too powerful I imagine, and his own abilities make me reluctant to even have him as a Skaven.
As for Estalia, I also support launching an invasion if we can get away with it. We'll have to see what everyone else does and if the Empire can be distracted enough, but IIRC the Skaven apparently invaded both Estalia and Tilea without too much issue in canon.
@Xantalos Can I ask you to make it more obvious what the changes are between turns if you're editing an existing Threadmark and leaving it vague like this? It's hard to remember all the details from the past turn so as to compare. (I haven't yet looked, just asking in general, you might have already done this.)
Oh for sure. I'll add in what exactly the changes are in the update, but basically Warpfang's up 2 slots, Pestilens is down a slot, I think Rictus is down 2, navy's up a slot, USA's up a slot or two, and Horripila's up one or two as well.
Oh for sure. I'll add in what exactly the changes are in the update, but basically Warpfang's up 2 slots, Pestilens is down a slot, I think Rictus is down 2, navy's up a slot, USA's up a slot or two, and Horripila's up one or two as well.
Nah, they've been spending the year figuratively drooling over the dawi-Zharr ironclads - they're actually crewing a few of the things, Vrisk just has the one as his flagship now. I may shift those ones around at some point later on, the big change in the Council is the Warpfang Bank knocking the Seers out of the top spot.
I'm pretty happy about these results. The broad strokes of the Cathay invasion were successful and the Dark Lands had been secured from dragon ogres for a short while.
I'm even content about Myrmidia kicking some ass. It wouldn't be Warhammer if we won in every occasion, and the forces of Order will need a lot of badass moment to have a chance against a cooperating and decisive Skaven Empire.
Let's cripple Cathay next turn while preparing against Nagash.
